The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers ride pigs, wield machine guns, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One of the most memorable, yet omitted, moments was the appearance of a "snake gun"—a weapon that literally fires serpents. Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, explains that the idea came from a team member’s son who asked, "Can there be a snake gun?" Leveraging an in‑house tool that allowed rapid weapon prototyping, Dietsch was able to build the snake‑shooter in roughly thirty minutes. The quirky weapon remains in the final product, exemplifying the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises.
Join Us is an open‑world sandbox survival experience set in a 1970s‑style cult. Players can recruit AI followers or invite friends in co‑op mode to grow their bizarre congregation.
The game’s design philosophy mirrors the studio’s broader approach: lean, tool‑centric, and deliberately disruptive. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up the ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑quality experience with just twelve people, and they laughed." The team’s confidence stems from a background in low‑budget, high‑impact filmmaking. "We come from indie cinema and we’re used to punching far above our weight," Abbott says.
After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the studio. The founders’ Hollywood credentials run deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of 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, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
The seed of Join Us was planted when Dietsch began tinkering with Unreal Engine, attracted by the fact that the engine could be downloaded for free. "I’d loved games for years, but creating something felt like a huge barrier," he recalls. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few small prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
The concept felt like a natural bridge between his film passions and his love of interactive media. To prove the idea, Dietsch created a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming he would soon hit a technical wall. He showed the demo to Abbott, who then introduced it to Dooma Wendschuh, the studio’s chief financial officer and narrative director.
Wendschuh’s résumé spans film production, screenwriting, and video‑game narrative work. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing writing services for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
In the 2010s he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire.
Yet a chance call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into game development. "I saw the demo Joe had made and it blew my mind," Wendschuh says, prompting him to join the project. He recruited former Warner Bros. Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor and brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
Funding proved challenging amid a market downturn in 2023. The studio’s early pitches generated interest but also skepticism. After partnering with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and refining their pitch, Wolf Haus secured a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024.
Wendschuh credits CAA’s representation—alongside titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of industry veterans Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors. Despite the high ambitions, the studio remains tiny: only 13 full‑time staff members.
Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional, fostering an environment where every voice matters and each employee can directly influence the creative direction. To make a large‑scale, high‑fidelity game feasible with such a lean crew, Wolf Haus 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 explains. The first year was split between ideating gameplay and building the internal toolset that would later allow the open‑world map to expand without collapsing under its own complexity.
The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s capital financed the entire development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. "Equity investors want the studio to increase its enterprise value, so they support us in building extensive toolchains," Wendschuh notes. "Whenever we encounter a problem we can’t solve, we build a tool to address it.
It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables us to achieve AAA‑level results with a small team." When asked about the role of generative AI, Dietsch is unequivocal: the studio does not employ AI for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Turning development over to an AI agent would defeat why we get up in the morning," he says. Wendschuh adds that the team only uses AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton—publicly branding itself as an "AI‑first" company—explicitly discouraged Wolf Haus from using generative AI in production, mirroring a stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant.
The studio’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometer‑square map of Join Us was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. Dietsch stresses that this level of artisanal effort matters even for an indie title. Comparing film and game development, Dietsch highlights the immediacy of interactive media.
In film, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and lengthy production schedules. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours, allowing creators to see their vision in real time.
Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with massive logistical hurdles before any shooting begins, whereas games face fewer gatekeepers. "You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game," he says, noting that the lower barriers to entry increase the odds of indie success. Both mediums, however, share a core creative impulse: storytelling and immersive experience.
Dietsch reflects on his childhood, recalling a coin toss between becoming a filmmaker or a game developer. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator and has always been fascinated by both forms of narrative. "Whether you’re making a movie or a game, you’re trying to give someone an experience, tell a story, and engage them," he concludes. Join Us therefore stands as a testament to what a small, tightly knit team with Hollywood pedigree, entrepreneurial savvy, and a dedication to handcrafted tools can achieve.
It challenges the notion that massive budgets and large staffs are prerequisites for ambitious, high‑quality games, and it does so while deliberately eschewing the shortcuts offered by generative AI. The result is a quirky, chaotic cult simulator that promises both humor and horror, built from the ground up by a dozen passionate creators.