The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, giving viewers a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the preview, cloaked followers rode on pigs, brandished machine guns, and the sequence culminated with a nightmarish vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the chief executive officer and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a child’s off‑hand suggestion.
"My team member’s son asked, ‘What if there was a snake‑shooting gun?’" Dietsch recalls. "Because we have a modular weapon system, I was able to prototype a snake‑firing gun in roughly thirty minutes.
The kid went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the game." This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us—a sprawling, open‑world sandbox where players can amass followers or team up with friends to run 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 built without a massive staff. "We told everyone we could pull this off with a dozen developers.
Most people laughed and called it impossible," he says. Their confidence stems from a background in low‑budget indie filmmaking, where stretching limited resources is second nature. After 80 pitch meetings, the studio finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now hold stakes in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, the son of actor‑director 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 the Star Citizen universe. Abbott also produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "I discovered that Unreal Engine could be downloaded for free, and that felt like a gateway that lowered the barrier to entry for creators like me," he explains. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, eventually building a handful of modest prototypes before committing to a larger vision. The core idea— a doomsday cult simulator that fuses survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—kept resurfacing because it married his passions for both film and gaming.
To test the concept, Dietsch assembled a proof‑of‑concept demo and showed it to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, a partner studio. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, began his career 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.
He later founded several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After cashing out, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a chance call from his former Hollywood roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into development.
"I was ready for a quiet life, but when Joe sent me the demo, it blew my mind and convinced me to come out of retirement," Wendschuh says. He introduced the project to Reid Schneider, a former vice‑president at Warner Bros. Games and current head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet. Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing—a daunting task given the industry’s downturn in mid‑2023. The studio’s initial outreach yielded interest but no commitments.
After partnering with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, they resumed pitching throughout 2024 and eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits CAA’s influence and the credibility of veteran advisors like Schneider and Chartrand for helping secure the deals.
Despite the high‑profile backers, Wolf Haus remains a micro‑studio of just thirteen full‑time staff members. "We entered the project with a clear understanding of its scope and deliberately kept the team small so every voice could be heard and everyone could touch the creative process," Dietsch notes. To make such an ambitious open‑world title feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling during the first year of development. "Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains.
By constructing a robust internal toolkit, they ensured that as features proliferated across the six‑kilometre‑square map, the project wouldn’t collapse under its own weight. The equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance the development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. "Our investors are motivated to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," says Wendschuh.
"When we encounter a problem we can’t solve, we simply create a tool to address it. It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a tiny team to produce a game of this scale." In an era where many studios tout generative‑AI pipelines, Wolf Haus deliberately eschews AI for core creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential for games.
Hand‑crafting experiences is why we get up in the morning," Dietsch asserts. The team does use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, but not for asset creation or narrative design.
Interestingly, Krafton—positioned as an "AI‑first" company—insisted that Wolf Haus refrain from using generative AI in the game's development, mirroring a broader industry caution about AI‑driven content. The studio’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The entire map is manually designed, and all 15,000 voice lines are recorded by human actors, a point both Dietsch and Wendschuh emphasize as a core value proposition.
"We don’t want AI to replace voice talent or artists; that would undermine the creative labor we respect," Wendschuh says. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between filmmaking and game development. In film, 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, allowing immediate iteration within the engine.
"That immediacy is exhilarating," he says. Wendschuh adds that while movies are front‑loaded with high‑stakes set‑ups and reliance on star power, games have fewer gatekeepers, making it easier for small teams to achieve success without A‑list talent. Both founders trace their creative spark back to childhood. "I wanted to make games or movies at six years old; 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 for storytelling. He believes that regardless of medium, the goal remains the same: to deliver an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience. This shared purpose underpins Join Us, a game that blends satire, survival, and cult‑building into a singular, player‑driven adventure, all crafted by a lean Hollywood‑infused team that refuses to rely on generative AI.