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, fire machine guns, and eventually confront massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One of the most memorable, though unseen, moments was the appearance of a "snake gun" – a weapon that literally shoots serpents. "My teammate’s son asked if a snake gun could exist," recalls Joe Dietsch, CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games. "We had a rapid‑scaling gun‑creation tool, so within about thirty minutes I built one that launches snakes.
He was thrilled, and the weapon stayed in the final game." That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit of Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title that lets players recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to lead a 1970s‑style cult. It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a high‑fidelity, large‑scale experience to be produced by a remarkably small crew. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors.
We told everyone we could build this game with just twelve people, and most thought it was impossible." The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets. "We come from indie film backgrounds and are used to punching well above our weight," Abbott explains. 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 founders have deep ties to Hollywood.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who co‑founded the studio 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, a production company founded by Chris Roberts before his shift 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 experimenting in Unreal Engine.
"Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge," 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 blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He created a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and Abbott took it to Dooma for further development.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, started 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 (about $330 million USD). After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry.
Impressed by Dietsch’s demo, Wendschuh helped bring the project to Reid Schneider, former Warner Bros Games VP and now head of Raccoon Logic, who became a strategic advisor and recruited Ubisoft Montreal veteran Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand as chief technology officer. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing, a challenge made harder by a market downturn in mid‑2023. The studio pitched repeatedly, eventually enlisting CAA (Creative Artists Agency) as representation.
"Having CAA, which also represents titles like 007: First Light, opened doors," Wendschuh notes, adding that veteran agents like Derek Douglas—who had represented him during his twelve years in games—were instrumental. Despite the pedigree, the development model remains lean: only 13 full‑time staff members are working on Join Us. Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional, fostering an environment where every voice matters and each person can directly shape the creative direction.
To make a sprawling open‑world feasible with such a compact crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tools early on. "Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," he explains.
"We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a large map without the project collapsing under its own weight. The first year was as much about building those tools as it was about designing the game itself." The funding structure also supports this tooling‑heavy approach. Krafton and Lifelike Capital’s equity investment has been used to self‑fund the development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing.
"Equity partners want the studio to increase its enterprise value, so they encourage us to invest in robust tools," says Wendschuh. "When we encounter a problem we can’t solve, we build a tool for it. It may slow us down short‑term, but it enables a small team to deliver a game of this scale." When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not rely on it for creative work.
"We believe a game needs a human touch. Handing development over to an AI would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," Dietsch says.
Wendschuh adds that while they use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, none of it influences the game's design, art, or narrative. Interestingly, Krafton—publicly branding itself as an "AI‑first" company—specifically required that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The commitment to human‑crafted content extends to the game's world and audio.
The six‑kilometre‑square map was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by real actors, not synthetic voices. Dietsch stresses that even as an indie studio, preserving that level of craftsmanship was non‑negotiable.
Dietsch also reflects on the contrast between filmmaking and game development. In film, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and studio greenlights. In games, an idea can be prototyped within hours: "You can have a concept in the morning, drop it into the engine, see it instantly, and start iterating. That immediacy is exhilarating." Wendschuh points out that movies are heavily front‑loaded, with intense pre‑production phases focused on securing high‑profile talent to obtain studio backing.
While anyone can technically shoot a film with a cheap camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. By contrast, the gaming landscape has fewer gatekeepers; a compelling game can succeed without A‑list actors or directors. "We don’t need a celebrity to sell a game," he says. Both men agree that the core creative impulse—telling stories and delivering experiences—remains the same across mediums.
"When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games; it came down to a coin toss and getting a camera for Christmas," Dietsch recalls. He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, a skill that later merged with his love of cinema. "Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re trying to give someone an experience, tell a story, and engage them. That fundamental goal doesn’t change." Join Us is therefore more than a quirky cult simulator; it is a proof‑of‑concept that a small, tightly knit team equipped with the right tools and a clear vision can produce a high‑quality, content‑rich title without leaning on generative AI.
The studio’s Hollywood lineage, tech savvy, and unconventional funding path illustrate a new model for independent game development—one that blends cinematic storytelling with interactive freedom, all while keeping the creative process firmly in human hands.