The buzz around Join Us began when its trailer lit up the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a darkly humorous glimpse of a co‑op cult simulator where robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a hail of machine‑gun fire, and eventually confront Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One of the most memorable, and unexpected, moments in that preview was the appearance of a "snake gun" – a weapon that literally fires serpents. Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, explains that the idea came from a team member’s child, who simply asked, "Can there be a snake gun?" With a custom‑built scaling tool, Dietsch was able to prototype the weapon in roughly half an hour, delighting the youngster and cementing the weapon’s place in the final game.
That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us. The title is an open‑world sandbox survival experience set in a 1970s‑style cult, where players can recruit AI followers or friends in co‑op mode to build and expand their bizarre community. Yet what truly sets the project apart is the way Wolf Haus has managed to deliver a high‑fidelity, content‑rich experience with a remarkably lean development crew.
Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, describes the team’s philosophy as one of deliberate disruption: "We told everyone we could build a AAA‑level game with just twelve people. Most people laughed, thinking it was impossible.
We proved them wrong." The founders’ backgrounds help explain how they could punch well above their weight. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, the son of Mel Gibson and a fellow Wolf Haus co‑founder. Together they co‑wrote and co‑directed indie features such as Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott grew up in a Hollywood make‑up family – his father is veteran artist Larry Abbott – and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before his foray into Star Citizen.
Abbott later produced films like Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. This blend of indie‑film hustle and Hollywood pedigree gave the team a comfort with small budgets and big ambitions. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments with Unreal Engine. He recalls that the engine’s free download removed a major barrier to entry for aspiring creators.
"I had loved games forever, but making one seemed out of reach. So I started watching YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday cult simulator because it let me mash together my love of survival games, grindhouse cinema, and quirky storytelling into a single IP," he says. The proof‑of‑concept demo impressed Abbott, who then introduced it to Dooma, a production partner. Meanwhile, Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had already forged a unique career path: after producing and writing for films, he founded Sekretagent Productions, supplying narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
In the 2010s he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire.
A sudden call from his old Hollywood‑hills roommate, Michael Abbott, about a video‑game project pulled him back into the industry. "The demo blew my mind and convinced me to come out of retirement," he recounts. Wendschuh then recruited Reid Schneider – former Warner Bros.
Games VP and current head of Raccoon Logic – as a strategic advisor, and brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With this core in place, the studio turned to fundraising. The timing was difficult: the industry was in a downturn when they began pitching in summer 2023.
After numerous presentations and a partnership with CAA (Creative Artists Agency), they secured seed investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both taking equity stakes in Wolf Haus. The financing model gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect its proprietary tools. "If a system is going to scale across a massive open world, a single developer must be able to debug and iterate on it alone," Dietsch explains. Consequently, the first year of development was split between designing gameplay concepts and building a robust internal toolset that could support future projects.
This tooling emphasis allowed a twelve‑person team to produce a game that would normally require a much larger staff. Funding also meant the studio could remain self‑sufficient. Krafton and Lifelike’s equity capital covered the bulk of development costs, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing.
The investors’ alignment with the studio’s long‑term value creation encouraged the team to keep building tools rather than cutting corners. "Whenever we hit a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a tool for it. It may slow us down short‑term, but it lets a tiny team achieve something massive," says Wendschuh.
In an era where many studios tout generative‑AI shortcuts, Wolf Haus deliberately avoids AI for creative work. Dietsch states plainly, "We don’t use generative AI in the game’s creation. The human touch is essential to us." Wendschuh adds that the team only employs AI for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Interestingly, Krafton – which has branded itself as an "AI‑first" company – insisted that Wolf Haus not rely on generative AI for core development, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map of Join Us was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. Dietsch believes this level of artisanal effort is crucial, even for an indie‑scale title, because it preserves the game's personality and immersion.
Transitioning from film to games also gave Dietsch a fresh perspective on production timelines. In film, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and studio green‑lights. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours and tested instantly in the engine.
"You can have an idea this morning, drop it into Unreal, and see it in action the same day," he says, describing the exhilarating immediacy of interactive media. Wendschuh notes that while filmmaking is heavily front‑loaded – with intense pre‑production and the need for high‑profile talent to secure financing – game development faces fewer gatekeepers. "Anyone can make a game with a modest budget and publish it, whereas a movie without A‑list names struggles to get distribution," he observes.
This democratization, he believes, is why a small, passionate team like Wolf Haus can succeed. Both founders trace their creative spark back to childhood. Dietsch recalls wanting to make either movies or games at age six, a decision that hinged on whether he received a camera for Christmas.
He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, laying the foundation for a career that now blends cinematic storytelling with interactive design. In summary, Join Us is the product of Hollywood heritage, a lucrative cannabis exit, and a relentless focus on custom tooling – all delivered by a lean, twelve‑person studio that deliberately shuns generative AI. The game promises a wild, satirical cult experience, built from the ground up by a team that believes a small, empowered group can achieve what larger studios consider impossible.