The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, giving viewers a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers ride on pigs, unleash a hail of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates in a nightmarish vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles.
One element that didn’t make the final edit was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that shoots serpents. Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, explains how that oddball idea came to life. "One of our team member’s kids suggested, ‘What if there’s a snake gun?’ We had a modular weapon system that let us prototype a new gun in about thirty minutes.
I built it on the fly, and the kid was thrilled. It stayed in the game," Dietsch recalls. This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit followers—or other players in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult.
The game’s design philosophy mirrors the studio’s broader approach: a tech‑first mindset that enables a small, highly skilled team to produce a high‑fidelity experience traditionally reserved for much larger studios. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed it up: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told ourselves we could build a AAA‑quality title with just twelve people, and everyone else thought we were crazy." Wolf Haus’s founders are no strangers to punching above their weight. Their careers began in indie film, where limited budgets forced them to be inventive.
"We come from indie cinema and we’re used to doing big things with tiny resources," Abbott says. After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving the project the runway it needed. The founding team’s Hollywood pedigree runs deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, the 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, a production company originally founded by Chris Roberts before his move to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
"Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a massive barrier to creating something myself," he says. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, eventually crafting a few modest prototypes. The concept that stuck was a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—a hybrid that merged his two passions. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming it would quickly hit a technical wall.
When he showed it to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and took the demo to Dooma, a production partner. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously worked 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, 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, in classic Hollywood fashion, an unexpected call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry. "I watched the demo Joe sent me and it blew my mind.
It convinced me to come out of retirement," Wendschuh says. He then introduced the project to Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros.
Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic, and Schneider recruited former Ubisoft Montreal programmer Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand as chief technology officer. With a core team forming, the next hurdle was funding—a difficult task during the industry downturn of 2023‑24.
The studio began pitching in the summer of 2023, receiving positive feedback but also skepticism. After partnering with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, they continued pitching into 2024 and eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits CAA’s representation—also handling titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors.
Despite the high‑profile backing, Wolf Haus kept its staff lean: just 13 full‑time employees. Dietsch emphasizes that a small team fosters a collaborative atmosphere where everyone can influence the creative direction.
To make a sprawling open‑world game feasible with such a limited crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on. "Every system must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," he explains.
The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and building the internal tools that would later allow the world to expand without collapsing under its own weight. The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect these tools.
Krafton and Lifelike’s investments were used to self‑fund the game, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. "Our investors want the studio to increase its enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," says Wendschuh.
"Whenever we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a tool for it. It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a small team to achieve something massive." When asked about generative AI, the team’s stance is clear: they avoid it for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate content would defeat the reason we love making games," Dietsch says.
Wendschuh adds that the only AI they employ is for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton—positioned as an "AI‑first" company—explicitly required that Wolf Haus not rely on generative AI for development, mirroring a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s massive six‑kilometre‑square map and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors.
"That was non‑negotiable for us, even as a small indie," says Dietsch. The decision reflects a broader philosophy that values artistic labour over automation. Dietsch also notes a key advantage of game development over film: immediacy.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring numerous approvals and a long production pipeline. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours, allowing creators to see and iterate on their vision instantly. Wendschuh points out that film production is heavily front‑loaded, often dependent on securing a handful of high‑profile talent to greenlight a project.
While anyone can shoot a low‑budget movie with a backyard camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. By contrast, the video‑game market has fewer gatekeepers; a compelling experience can find an audience without A‑list names. Both Dietsch and Wendschuh see a shared creative impulse across the two 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 reflects. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, a skill that later informed his game‑making. Ultimately, he believes the core goal remains the same: to craft an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience, regardless of whether the canvas is film or interactive software. Join Us thus stands as a testament to what a determined, technically savvy, and creatively unified small team can achieve.
By leveraging Hollywood experience, strategic financing, and a refusal to rely on generative AI, Wolf Haus is delivering a cult‑simulator that promises both absurdist fun and a meticulously crafted world, all while proving that size isn’t the sole determinant of ambition in modern game development.