The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation. In the preview, robed followers zip around on pig‑back, brandishing machine guns, before the screen erupts into a vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles.
What didn’t make the cut, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—was the infamous snake gun. "One of the developers’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’" Dietsch recalls. "We had built a modular weapon system that lets us prototype a gun in minutes, so I whipped up a snake‑firing prototype in about half an hour.
The kid went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the final build." That anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a tiny crew to produce a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We set out to be disruptors.
We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve talented people can pull this off.’ Most people thought we were crazy." The team’s confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where they learned to achieve cinematic ambitions on shoestring budgets. "We come from indie film circles and we’re used to punching far above our weight," Abbott explains. After 80 pitch meetings, the studio finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving Wolf Haus the financial runway to finish the game.
Wolf Haus’s founders are steeped in Hollywood history. 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 movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "Unreal Engine is free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a massive barrier to creating my own," he says.
He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, eventually building a few modest prototypes. The concept that persisted was a doomsday cult simulator that merged survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—a hybrid that could become a unique intellectual property. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, expecting to hit technical limits quickly. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and presented it to Dooma, a partner studio.
Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had a varied career: he began as a film producer and screenwriter, later providing narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins through his own company, Sekretagent Productions. In the 2010s he founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million. After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back.
"I saw the prototype Joe sent me and it blew my mind. I quit my retirement plan and jumped in," Wendschuh recounts. He then recruited Reid Schneider—formerly a vice‑president at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic—to serve as a strategic advisor, and brought Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, on board as chief technology officer.
With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing, a task made harder by a market downturn in mid‑2023. The studio pitched relentlessly, eventually signing with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Los Angeles and 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 the CAA connection 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 department at William Morris," says Wendschuh. "Those relationships mattered when investors were nervous about a small team tackling a big project." Despite the high aspirations, the studio has remained lean—only 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional: "We wanted a setting where every voice matters, where everyone can touch the creative direction, and where the final product feels like it came from a tightly knit group." To make such an ambitious title feasible, Wolf Haus invested heavily in internal tooling from day one. "Every system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains.
The team built a robust suite of development tools that allowed them to expand features across an open‑world map without the project collapsing under its own weight. In practice, the first year of development was split between designing gameplay concepts and engineering the tools that would bring those concepts to life, a dual focus that also prepares the studio for future projects. The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect these tools.
"Krafton and Lifelike are equity partners, so the money they invested is essentially self‑funding for the game," Wendschuh notes. While the studio has begun to explore project finance for marketing, the core development has been covered entirely by the investors.
This structure aligns the investors’ interests with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the team to continue building reusable tools even if it slows immediate progress. When asked about the role of generative AI, Dietsch gives a clear answer: the studio does not use it for creative work. "We believe a game needs a human touch. Handing the creative process over to an AI would defeat why we get up every morning," he says.
Wendschuh adds that the only AI tools they employ are mundane productivity aids like calendar scheduling and email drafting—nothing that influences art, design, or narrative. Interestingly, Krafton—an organization that recently branded itself as “AI‑first”—explicitly discouraged the use of generative AI in Wolf Haus’s pipeline.
"Our investors wanted assurance that the studio wouldn’t rely on AI to produce the game," Wendschuh explains, echoing a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant, which publicly denied using AI for its own titles. The team’s commitment to human‑crafted content extends to the game’s world and audio.
The six‑kilometer‑square map of Join Us is entirely hand‑modeled, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by real actors, not synthetic voices. "Even as a small indie, preserving that human element was non‑negotiable," Dietsch asserts.
Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and game creation. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and extensive pre‑production. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning and instantly viewed in the engine.
"That immediacy is exhilarating," he says. Wendschuh points out that film production is front‑loaded with high‑stakes negotiations for talent and studio backing, whereas games face fewer gatekeepers.
"Anyone can rent a camera and shoot a backyard movie, but without big names or distribution, success is unlikely. With games, the barrier to entry is lower, and you don’t need an A‑list star to attract an audience," he explains. Both founders agree that the core creative drive—telling stories and delivering experiences—remains the same across mediums.
"When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It boiled down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera," Dietsch laughs.
"Whether it’s film or a game, you’re crafting an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. The medium changes, but the purpose stays."