The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers ride pig‑back while wielding machine guns, culminating in a nightmarish vision of Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final edit was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that came about thanks to an off‑hand suggestion from a developer’s child.
Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recalls the moment: “My team member’s son asked, ‘What if there’s a gun that shoots snakes?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that lets us scale weapons in minutes, so I built a snake‑shooting gun in about half an hour. He was thrilled, and the weapon stayed in the game.” This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire. The game’s whimsical violence and off‑beat humor are only part of the story.
Behind the scenes, Wolf Haus has taken a decidedly tech‑first approach, allowing a tiny crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a studio of dozens. Michael Abbott, the company’s chief operating officer, summed up their philosophy: “We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build this with twelve people.
Most people laughed and said it was impossible.” Abbott and his colleagues draw on a background of indie filmmaking, where small budgets and lean crews are the norm. “We’re used to punching well above our weight,” Abbott notes.
After eighty pitch meetings, the team finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving them the financial runway to turn their vision into a product. The founders’ Hollywood roots run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of actor Mel Gibson, and the two later co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie features Happy Hunting and Manifest West.
Abbott is the son of veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, a production company started by Chris Roberts before his shift to Star Citizen. Abbott also produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
These connections provided both creative sensibility and an understanding of how to stretch limited resources. Join Us began as a personal experiment in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games and movies, but the barrier to actually making something felt huge," Dietsch explains. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, creating a handful of small prototypes before committing to a larger concept.
The idea of a doomsday cult simulator appealed to him because it merged survival mechanics with the gritty aesthetic of grindhouse cinema, allowing him to fuse his two passions into a single intellectual property. The proof‑of‑concept demo was rough but promising. Dietsch showed it to Abbott, who immediately saw its potential and passed it along to Dooma, a production partner. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had a career that spanned film production, screenwriting, and video‑game narrative work.
He had previously provided writing services for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins, and he founded a cannabis‑formulation company that sold for C$430 million. After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry, and he quickly became a strategic advisor for Wolf Haus.
Wendschuh recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With this core team in place, the next hurdle was funding—an especially tough challenge in a market that was already feeling a downturn in 2023. The studio signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for representation, leveraging the agency’s connections to secure a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton. The involvement of seasoned veterans like former Warner Bros.
Games VP Reid Schneider, now head of Raccoon Logic, added credibility and helped open doors. Despite the high‑profile backing, Wolf Haus has remained a micro‑studio, employing only thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that this small size is intentional: “We wanted a team where everyone has a voice, where each person can touch the creative, and where the final product feels like it was made by a specific group of people.” To make such an ambitious open‑world project feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early in development.
"If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch says. The first year was split between ideating gameplay and building the internal toolset that would allow the game to expand across a six‑kilometre‑square map without collapsing under its own weight. The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect these tools. "Krafton and Lifelike are equity partners, so the money they invested funds the game directly," explains Wendschuh.
"We’re essentially self‑funded, with a small amount of project finance reserved for marketing. The investors are incentivized to increase the studio’s enterprise value, which aligns with our ethos of building reusable tools for future projects." When asked about the role of generative AI—a hot topic in game development—both Dietsch and Wendschuh were unequivocal: the studio does not use AI for any creative tasks.
"We believe a human touch is essential," Dietsch states. "We have a few AI subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management, but none of them touch the artistic side of development." Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, also insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, fearing it could dilute the artistic integrity of the product.
This stance mirrors that of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly rejected the use of AI in its development process. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game's massive map and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors. "That was a non‑negotiable for us," says Dietsch. "Even as a tiny indie, we wanted every element to feel authentic." Dietsch also reflects on the differences between filmmaking and game development.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring endless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent to secure a greenlight. By contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours, allowing creators to iterate instantly. "You can have an idea this morning, drop it into the engine, and see it in action the same day," he says, highlighting the immediacy that fuels his passion.
Wendschuh adds that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, costly set‑ups that hinge on securing a few marquee names. While anyone can technically shoot a low‑budget movie, breaking through without established stars or distribution is rare. Games, however, have far fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without needing an A‑list director or actor. Both founders agree that the core motivation behind both mediums is storytelling.
"When I was six, I wanted to make games or movies; it boiled down to a coin toss and getting a camera for Christmas," Dietsch recalls. He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, laying the foundation for a career that straddles both worlds. "Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re creating an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience.
That creative impulse remains the same." In summary, Wolf Haus’s journey illustrates how a blend of Hollywood heritage, savvy entrepreneurship, and a relentless focus on bespoke tools can enable a dozen‑person studio to produce a sprawling, high‑quality cult simulator without relying on generative AI. Their story underscores the shifting dynamics of modern game development, where small, agile teams can rival traditional studios by leveraging technology, strategic partnerships, and a clear artistic vision.