The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers ride on pigs, unleash machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with an ominous image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What the audience didn’t see was the infamous snake‑gun, a weapon that Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—credits to a spontaneous idea from a team member’s child.
"His son asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new firearm in about thirty minutes, so I built one that literally shoots snakes. The kid went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls. This anecdote perfectly captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit AI followers or friends to join a 1970s‑style cult. 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, explains that the team set out to prove that a high‑fidelity title could be produced by a dozen developers. "Everyone told us it was impossible. We came from indie‑film backgrounds where we learned to punch far above our weight, so we knew we could make something big on a shoestring," he says. After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus.
Wolf Haus’s leadership is steeped in Hollywood history. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of actor‑director Mel Gibson, and together they 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 he turned his attention to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. The seed of Join Us was planted when Dietsch began tinkering with Unreal Engine after discovering it could be downloaded for free.
"I’d been a gamer my whole life, but creating a game felt like an insurmountable barrier. I started learning from YouTube tutorials and built a few tiny prototypes," he says. Those early experiments evolved into a proof‑of‑concept centered on a doomsday cult simulator—a hybrid of survival mechanics, grindhouse cinema aesthetics, and the narrative depth of a film IP.
When Dietsch presented the demo to Abbott, the latter immediately took it to Dooma, the studio’s early‑stage partner. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously worked as a producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s, contributing writing to titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
In the 2010s he founded several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After cashing out, Wendschuh bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire. Yet a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into development. "I watched the early version of Join Us and it completely blew my mind, so I stepped out of retirement to help," Wendschuh recounts.
He brought on Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic (the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet), as a strategic advisor. Schneider recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With a core team of 13 full‑time staff, Wolf Haus faced the classic indie dilemma: how to deliver a sprawling, high‑detail world without the resources of a AAA studio. Their answer was to invest heavily in custom tooling from day one. "Every system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. By creating robust pipelines and modular tools, the team ensured that as the open‑world map expanded, the project wouldn’t buckle under its own complexity.
This tool‑first mindset also laid the groundwork for future titles, allowing the studio to reuse and adapt its technology stack. Funding from Kraftor and Lifelike Capital was structured as equity, meaning the investors’ success is tied to the studio’s long‑term valuation rather than short‑term milestones. This arrangement gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect its tools and iterate without constant pressure to ship. "We’ve essentially self‑funded the development using the capital they provided," says Wendschuh.
"We’re now only seeking a modest amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development was covered entirely by our equity partners." A notable aspect of Wolf Haus’s workflow is its staunch refusal to rely on generative AI for creative tasks. While many studios experiment with AI‑generated assets to accelerate production, Dietsch and his team believe that a human touch is essential for authentic storytelling.
"We have a few AI subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management, but none of them touch the creative side of the game," Wendschuh clarifies. In fact, Krafton—despite branding itself as an “AI‑first” company—specifically required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the development pipeline, ensuring the studio’s output remained wholly handcrafted. The commitment to hand‑crafted content extends to the game’s massive six‑kilometre‑square map and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors. "Every line was performed by a real person, which was non‑negotiable for us," Dietsch emphasizes.
This decision aligns with the studio’s broader philosophy of preserving creative jobs in an era where AI threatens to replace voice actors and artists. Dietsch also highlights a key advantage of game development over film: immediacy. In cinema, a concept can take years to materialise—script, green‑light, casting, shooting, post‑production—whereas in games an idea can be prototyped in hours and tested instantly in the engine. "You can wake up with a mechanic, drop it into Unreal, and see it work that same day.
That rapid feedback loop is exhilarating," he says. Wendschuh adds that film production is heavily front‑loaded, requiring the attachment of high‑profile talent to secure financing, whereas games have far fewer gatekeepers.
"Anyone can publish a game without needing an A‑list star or director. The barriers to entry are lower, which democratises the medium," he notes. Both founders agree that, at their core, creating a film or a game is about delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience.
Dietsch reflects on his childhood fascination with both mediums, recalling how a Christmas camera and a TI‑83 calculator sparked his love for programming and visual storytelling. "Whether you’re making a movie or a game, the goal is the same: to immerse people in a narrative world," he concludes. Join Us therefore stands as a testament to what a small, tightly‑aligned team can achieve when they combine Hollywood know‑how, savvy business acumen from the cannabis sector, and a relentless focus on building the right tools—all without leaning on generative AI.
The result is a quirky, high‑octane cult simulator that promises players a uniquely handcrafted adventure, and a proof point that size isn’t the only determinant of ambition in modern game development.