The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulation where robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash machine‑gun fire, and conclude with a shot of eldritch, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make it into the teaser was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that emerged from an off‑hand suggestion by a team member’s child.
"His son asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’" recalls Joe Dietsch, CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games. "Because we had a modular gun system, I could prototype a snake‑shooter in about thirty minutes.
The kid went nuts, and we kept it in the final build." That anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay Join Us promises: an open‑world survival experience where players can recruit AI followers or friends into a 1970s‑style cult, complete with bizarre weapons and over‑the‑top rituals. It also illustrates the studio’s tech‑first mindset, which has enabled a small team to deliver a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their philosophy: "We set out to be disruptors. While everyone assumed you needed a hundred‑person studio to build something this ambitious, we believed twelve could do it." The team’s confidence wasn’t unfounded.
Their backgrounds in independent film taught them to punch far above their budgets. "We grew up on indie productions, learning to stretch every dollar," Abbott says. After 80 pitch meetings, they finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus.
The founders’ Hollywood connections run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who later co‑founded Wolf Haus and co‑wrote 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 originally founded by Chris Roberts before he moved on to Star Citizen.
Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch tinkering with Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d been a gamer my whole life, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge," he explains. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, eventually building a few modest prototypes.
The idea of a doomsday cult simulator kept resurfacing because it blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—exactly the mix he wanted for a new intellectual property. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, expecting to hit a technical wall soon.
When he showed it to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and introduced it to Dooma, a production partner. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had a film background 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 through his studio Sekretagent Productions.
He later founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million. After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire.
Yet a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott, changed his plans. "He sent me a video of Joe’s game, and it blew my mind.
I came out of retirement to help," Wendschuh says. He brought on Reid Schneider, former Warner Bros Games VP and now head of Raccoon Logic, as a strategic advisor, and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With the core team in place, the next hurdle was financing—especially during a market downturn in 2023. Initial pitches generated interest but also skepticism. The studio enlisted Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to amplify their reach, returning to the pitch circuit in 2024.
Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed a seed round, providing the capital needed to continue development. Abbott credits CAA’s representation and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors.
"Our agent Derek Douglas had represented me for twelve years and previously ran the video‑game division at William Morris," Wendschuh notes. Despite the high ambitions, Join Us is being built by only 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team structure is intentional: "Everyone has a voice, everyone touches the creative, and the game feels like a product of a tight‑knit group rather than a faceless corporation." To make such a scope feasible, Wolf Haus invested heavily in internal tooling from day one.
"Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and constructing the pipelines that would allow those ideas to scale across a six‑kilometre‑square open world without collapsing under their own weight. This tool‑first approach also aligns with the expectations of their equity investors, who encourage building reusable technology even if it slows short‑term progress. Funding from Krafton and Lifelike is structured as equity, meaning the studio can self‑finance the game’s production while using a modest amount of project finance for marketing later on.
"Our investors want the studio to increase enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," Wendschuh says. "When we encounter a problem we can’t solve, we simply create a tool to fix it. It may add development time, but it empowers a tiny team to achieve big results." When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not employ it for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate assets would defeat why we love making games," Dietsch asserts. Wendschuh adds that the only AI they use is for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton, which has branded itself as an “AI‑first” company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline as a condition of their investment.
The studio’s stance reflects broader industry concerns about AI displacing voice actors, artists, and other creative talent. All 15,000 voice lines in Join Us were recorded by human performers, and the entire map was handcrafted, not procedurally generated by AI.
"That was non‑negotiable for us, even as a small indie," says Dietsch. Dietsch also highlights a key advantage of game development over film: immediacy. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring scripts, greenlights, casting, and lengthy production schedules. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours and tested in real time inside the engine.
"You can have an idea at breakfast and see it on screen by lunch," he says, describing the thrill of rapid iteration. Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with massive coordination required to secure a handful of high‑profile talent before a project even begins.
While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. By comparison, the video‑game market has fewer gatekeepers; a well‑executed indie title can reach millions without A‑list names.
Both mediums, however, share a common creative impulse: storytelling and evoking emotion. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It came down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera," Dietsch reflects. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, blending technical curiosity with narrative passion.
Whether through film or interactive entertainment, his goal remains the same—to craft experiences that captivate audiences. Join Us stands as a testament to what a small, focused team can achieve when they combine Hollywood storytelling heritage, savvy tech development, and a clear philosophy that prioritizes human creativity over algorithmic shortcuts.
The game’s quirky weapons, hand‑crafted world, and cult‑themed chaos promise a fresh, immersive adventure that defies the expectations of both the gaming industry and the traditional studio system.