The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers zip around on pig‑drawn carts, unleash a hail of gunfire, and the sequence culminates with an image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the edit was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that originated from an off‑hand suggestion by a developer’s child. Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recounted the moment: a youngster asked, "Can there be a snake gun?" Using an in‑house scaling tool, Dietsch whipped up a functional snake‑shooting weapon in roughly thirty minutes, and the quirky armament remains a permanent fixture in the game.
That anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay that Join Us promises. Players are dropped into an open‑world survival environment where they can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑styled cult.
It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a small team to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a far larger workforce. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up the ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could deliver a AAA‑level experience with just twelve people, and most thought we were crazy." The team’s confidence stems from a background in independent filmmaking, where they learned to achieve big results on modest budgets.
"We come from indie film," Abbott explained, "so we’re used to punching well above our weight." After a grueling 80‑pitch marathon, the studio finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, the son of Mel Gibson and another co‑founder of Wolf Haus. Together they co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie features Happy Hunting and Manifest West.
Abbott is the son of renowned makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before his shift to Star Citizen. Later, Abbott produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us traces its origins to Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games," he said.
"I felt there was a huge barrier to creating something, so I started learning from YouTube tutorials and built a few tiny prototypes." Though he had no formal game‑dev experience, Dietsch managed to create two small titles before deciding to tackle something larger: a doomsday cult simulator that merged his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the pair took the concept to Dooma, the studio that would later become Wolf Haus. Dooma Wendschuh, the studio’s CFO and narrative director, entered the gaming world after a career as a film producer and screenwriter. 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.
He later launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million. After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into development.
Impressed by Dietsch’s demo, Wendschuh introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, who became a strategic advisor and recruited Ubisoft veteran Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand as chief technology officer.
Funding proved challenging amid a market downturn. The studio began pitching in summer 2023, received positive feedback but faced a tough environment. After enlisting CAA as representation and refining their pitch throughout 2024, they finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—also representing titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of seasoned industry veterans for helping secure the deal. Despite the high aspirations, Join Us is being built by only thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional: "We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative, and to feel ownership of the final product." To make such an ambitious open‑world feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset. "Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explained.
"We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and building the tools that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight." The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s capital financed the entire development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. Because the investors share in the studio’s enterprise value, they encourage the team’s tool‑building ethos, even if it slows short‑term progress. "Whenever we hit a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a tool for it," Wendschuh said.
"That approach lets a tiny team produce a game of this scale." When asked about generative AI, the team was unequivocal: they do not use it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential," Dietsch said. "We have a few subscriptions for calendar management and email drafting, but none of that influences the game’s design or art." Krafton, which has branded itself as an "AI‑first" company, actually required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. Wendschuh stressed that AI threatens jobs for voice actors and artists, and the studio wants to protect those roles.
The six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is hand‑crafted, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human talent—an important point for the developers. Dietsch finds the immediacy of game development liberating compared with film.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and studio backing. In games, a concept can be prototyped in a single morning and instantly visualised in the engine. Wendschuh noted that film production is front‑loaded with intense, high‑stakes set work and heavy reliance on a few marquee names to secure financing.
By contrast, the game industry has fewer gatekeepers; a small indie can achieve success without A‑list actors or directors. Both mediums, however, share a core creative impulse: telling stories and delivering experiences. Dietsch reflected on his childhood, recalling that at six he wanted to make either movies or games, and a simple coin toss—plus a Christmas camera—set him on his path.
Whether through film or interactive media, the goal remains the same: to craft an engaging narrative that resonates with an audience.