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 zip around on pigs, wield machine guns, and eventually confront Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake‑gun, a quirky weapon that CEO and creative director Joe Dietsch says was born from a child’s imagination. “One of the team members’ kids asked if we could make a snake‑gun,” Dietsch recalls.
“We had a modular weapon system, so in about thirty minutes I built a gun that fires snakes. He was thrilled, and the weapon stayed in the game.” That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit of Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title that lets players recruit followers—or other players in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a small crew to deliver a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a much larger staff.
"We set out to be disruptors," says Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer. "We told ourselves we could do everything with twelve people.
Everyone else thought we were crazy." The team’s confidence stems from a background in low‑budget, high‑impact indie filmmaking. "We come from indie film and we’re used to punching way above our weight," Abbott explains. After 80 pitch meetings, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the studio.
The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—who co‑founded Wolf Haus and 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 started by Chris Roberts before his transition to Star Citizen.
Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
"Unreal Engine was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a huge barrier to actually creating something," he says. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few small prototypes, and eventually settled on the idea of a doomsday cult simulator that merged survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo and showed it to Abbott, who then took it to Dooma.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis‑formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million.
After selling that business, he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada and thought he was retired—until a call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into game development. Wendschuh introduced the demo to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic (the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet). Schneider became a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer.
By the summer of 2023 the team was ready to pitch, but the industry was already in a downturn. "People liked what we were showing, but it was a tough market," Dietsch admits. After initial outreach, the studio signed with CAA in Los Angeles, refined its pitch, and eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024.
The partnership with CAA—who also represent titles like 007: First Light—proved crucial, as did the presence of veteran game industry figures like Schneider and Chartrand. "My agent at CAA, Derek Douglas, was also my agent when I was making games for twelve years," Wendschuh notes, emphasizing the value of established relationships. What truly sets Join Us apart is how it is being built: a full‑scale, open‑world game developed by just 13 full‑time staff members.
Dietsch explains that the studio entered the project with a clear understanding of scope and a desire to keep the team small enough that every member could have a voice in the creative process. To make such an ambitious title feasible, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from the very beginning.
"If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," he says. "We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a massive map without the project collapsing under its own weight. The first year was spent ideating the game while simultaneously constructing the tools that would make it possible." The funding model gave the studio the runway to perfect those tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s equity investment was used to self‑fund development, with only a small portion of later project finance earmarked for marketing.
"Equity partners are incentivized to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," Wendschuh explains. "Whenever we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a tool for it.
It may slow development, but it enables a tiny team to create something this large." When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not rely on it for any creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential to game making," Dietsch says. "Using an AI to generate content would defeat the purpose of why we get up in the morning. We only use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting." Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, also insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline.
This mirrors the stance of Krafton‑owned Neon Giant, which publicly distanced itself from the parent’s AI pivot. Wendschuh stresses that the studio respects creative professionals and does not want AI to replace voice actors or artists.
All 15,000 voice lines in Join Us were recorded by human talent, and the six‑kilometre‑square map was handcrafted. Dietsch reflects on the differences between film and games, noting the immediacy of interactive media. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals and a long production schedule. In games, an idea can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and instantly experienced.
This rapid feedback loop excites developers who enjoy seeing their concepts come to life without the gatekeeping that characterizes Hollywood. "You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game," he says, highlighting the lower barriers to entry and the democratizing potential of the medium. Both film and games, however, share a common creative impulse: telling stories and delivering experiences. Dietsch’s childhood fascination with both mediums—programming on a TI‑83 calculator and receiving a camera for Christmas—led him down a path where the line between the two blurred.
Whether through a cult‑simulator or a low‑budget indie film, the goal remains the same: to engage an audience, evoke emotion, and craft a memorable narrative. In summary, Wolf Haus’s journey illustrates how a handful of Hollywood‑savvy creators, bolstered by strategic funding and a relentless focus on custom tooling, can defy industry expectations.
By rejecting generative AI, embracing handcrafted assets, and leveraging a lean, collaborative team structure, they are delivering Join Us—a sprawling, chaotic, and uniquely human cult‑simulation that proves big dreams don’t always need big teams.