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 cultists ride on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with an ominous image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles.
One element that didn’t make the final edit was the infamous "snake gun," a quirky weapon that has become a signature joke among the developers. Joe Dietsch, the chief executive officer and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, explains how the idea originated: “One of the team members’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a modular weapon system that let us prototype a new gun in under thirty minutes, so I built a snake‑launcher on the spot. The kid went wild, and the weapon stayed in the game.” That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us. The game is an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult.
The design philosophy is deliberately anarchic, encouraging absurdist tactics and over‑the‑top combat. Yet behind the madness lies a rigorously engineered technology stack that has allowed Wolf Haus to produce a high‑fidelity title with a remarkably lean staff. Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, sums up their ambition: “We set out to be disruptors.
The industry tells you you need a hundred‑person team to ship a AAA‑level product. We said, ‘No, twelve people can do it.’ Everyone thought we were insane.” Their confidence stems from a background in independent filmmaking, where small crews routinely punch far above their weight.
Abbott notes that the team endured eighty pitch meetings before finally securing equity investment 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 in California alongside Louie Gibson, the son of actor‑director Mel Gibson, who later co‑founded Wolf Haus and co‑wrote 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 originally founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to the Star Citizen universe.
Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx, giving him a solid grounding in large‑scale entertainment production. Join Us was born from Dietsch’s experimentation with Unreal Engine. “I discovered that Unreal was free to download, and I’d spent years playing games while watching movies. The barrier to actually creating something felt huge, so I started learning from YouTube tutorials and tinkering on my own,” he recounts.
Without any formal game‑dev background, Dietsch built a few modest prototypes before committing to a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He crafted a proof‑of‑concept demo, ran it by Abbott, and the two presented it to Dooma, the studio that would later become a strategic partner. Dooma Wendschuh, the studio’s chief financial officer 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 services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. He later built several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After cashing out, Wendschuh bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire.
Yet a phone call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the industry. After viewing Dietsch’s demo, Wendschuh was convinced to join and later recruited former Warner Bros. Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor, along with Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
Securing financing proved arduous. The team began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by an industry downturn. Initial meetings generated enthusiasm for the concept but fell short of delivering capital. By partnering with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and re‑engaging in 2024, Wolf Haus finally closed a seed round with Krafton and Lifelike Capital.
Wendschuh credits CAA’s representation—also handling titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of seasoned veterans such as Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors that would otherwise have remained closed. Despite the high ambitions, the studio has remained intentionally small: thirteen full‑time staff members at the time of writing. Dietsch emphasizes that this size fosters a collaborative atmosphere where “everyone has a voice, everyone touches the creative, and the game feels like it was made by a tight‑knit group.” To make a sprawling open‑world project feasible with such a limited crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early in development.
“If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” Dietsch explains. The first year was therefore split between ideating gameplay and building the internal toolchain that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight. The equity‑funded model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools.
Krafton and Lifelike’s capital was used to self‑finance development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing later on. This structure aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the team to continue building reusable tools even when they temporarily slow down feature implementation. When asked about the role of generative AI—a hot topic in game development—Dietsch gave a clear answer: the studio does not rely on it for creative work.
“We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate assets would defeat the purpose of why we get up in the morning,” he says. Wendschuh adds that while the team may use AI‑powered services for administrative tasks like calendar management, no generative AI touches the artistic side of the project.
In fact, Krafton, which has publicly positioned itself as an “AI‑first” company, explicitly required that Wolf Haus refrain from using generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring similar statements from other Krafton‑owned studios such as 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 title boasts roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors—an impressive feat for an indie‑scale studio.
Dietsch stresses that this level of artisanal detail was non‑negotiable, even as the team could have outsourced or automated parts of the process. Transitioning from film to games also gave Dietsch a new appreciation for immediacy.
In cinema, a concept can take years to materialize, requiring multiple approvals and a long production pipeline. By contrast, a game idea can be prototyped within hours, allowing developers to see their vision materialize in real time.
Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with a small number of high‑profile talent needed to secure studio backing. While anyone can shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare.
Games, however, have a lower barrier to entry and fewer gatekeepers, meaning a small team can reach a global audience without A‑list names. Both mediums, though, share a core creative impulse: storytelling and experience design.
Dietsch reflects on his childhood, recalling that he wanted to make either movies or games, and a simple coin toss—and a Christmas camera—set him on his path. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, blending technical curiosity with narrative ambition. Whether through film or interactive media, his goal remains the same: to craft compelling experiences that engage and move audiences.
In summary, Wolf Haus’s journey illustrates how a blend of Hollywood heritage, savvy entrepreneurship, and bespoke technology can enable a tiny team to produce an ambitious, high‑quality game without leaning on generative AI. Their story underscores the power of small, focused crews, the importance of custom tooling, and the enduring value of human creativity in an increasingly automated industry.