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 preview, robed followers ride on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with an image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut of the showcase was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—originated from a spontaneous suggestion by a team member’s child.
"His son asked, ‘What if there’s a gun that shoots snakes?’" Dietsch recalls. "Because we built a modular weapon system, I was able to prototype a snake‑shooting gun in roughly thirty minutes. The kid went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the game." This anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit AI followers or friends into a 1970s‑style cult.
It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred developers; twelve will do.’ Most people laughed and said it was impossible." Their confidence stems from a history of doing big things on shoestring budgets.
Abbott, the son of veteran Hollywood makeup artist Larry Abbott, grew up around film production and later helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the company founded by Chris Roberts before his Star Citizen venture. He also produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Dietsch, a Chapman University film graduate, co‑wrote and co‑directed indie features like Happy Hunting and Manifest West with Louie Gibson, the son of actor Mel Gibson and fellow Wolf Haus co‑founder.
The pair’s cinematic pedigree helped them navigate a grueling fundraising journey. After 80 pitch meetings, Wolf Haus finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took a stake in the studio. The funding allowed the team to stay independent and self‑fund the development of Join Us, while also providing a modest amount of project finance for marketing later in the cycle.
The origins of Join Us trace back to Dietsch’s early experiments with Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d spent my life playing games and watching movies, but creating something felt out of reach," he explains. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually settled on the idea of a doomsday cult simulator—a mash‑up of survival mechanics, grindhouse cinema aesthetics, and the storytelling sensibilities of his film background.
The proof‑of‑concept was rough but promising, and when he showed it to Abbott, the latter immediately took it to Dooma, a production partner that helped shape the vision. Another key figure, Dooma’s CFO and narrative director Dooma Wendschuh, came from a hybrid career in film and games.
He produced and wrote for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins through his company Sekretagent Productions. In the 2010s he founded several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis‑formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million. After cashing out, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire.
A chance call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into game development when he was shown Dietsch’s demo and was instantly impressed. Wendschuh then recruited Reid Schneider—former Warner Bros.
Games VP and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet—as a strategic advisor, and brought on Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With this leadership team in place, Wolf Haus set out to build the game while simultaneously constructing the tools needed to support a sprawling open world.
Creating a massive, high‑detail experience with only a dozen‑plus full‑time staff required a heavy investment in custom tooling. "Every system has to be scalable and debuggable by a single person," says Dietsch.
"We spent the first year not just designing gameplay, but also engineering a toolkit that lets a lone developer add, test, and iterate without the project collapsing under its own weight." This approach paid off: the studio could iterate rapidly, add features like the snake gun, and keep the entire development pipeline under tight creative control. Funding from Krafton and Lifelike played a crucial role in sustaining this tool‑centric workflow.
Because the investors hold equity, they are motivated to see Wolf Haus increase its enterprise value, which translates into support for long‑term engineering investments rather than short‑term crunch. "Whenever we hit a problem we don’t know how to solve, we simply build a tool to address it," Wendschuh notes.
"It may slow down immediate progress, but it enables us to achieve a scope that would otherwise be impossible for a small team." In an industry increasingly enamored with generative AI, Wolf Haus deliberately steered clear of the technology for creative tasks. "We believe a game needs a human touch," Dietsch asserts.
"Using AI to generate assets would defeat the reason we get up every morning—to craft something with our own hands." The team does use AI for administrative purposes—calendar management and email drafting—but none of the game’s art, narrative, or programming is AI‑generated. Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, actually required Wolf Haus to confirm that no generative AI would be employed in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑backed studio.
The commitment to handcrafted content is evident throughout Join Us. The six‑kilometre‑square map was manually designed, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors. Dietsch emphasizes that this level of manual craftsmanship is a point of pride, especially for an indie studio.
Comparing his experiences in film and games, Dietsch highlights the immediacy of interactive media. In cinema, an idea can take years to secure financing, cast A‑list talent, and finally shoot on set. By contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and instantly visualized.
This rapid feedback loop fuels the studio’s iterative process and keeps the team motivated. Wendschuh adds that film production is heavily front‑loaded, requiring the alignment of a few high‑profile directors or actors before a studio will green‑light a project.
While anyone can technically shoot a low‑budget film with a backyard camera, breaking through without marquee names or distribution is rare. Games, however, have far fewer gatekeepers; a small team can release a polished product directly to players without needing celebrity endorsement. Both founders trace their creative spark back to childhood. "When I was six, I wanted to make movies or games—it came down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera," Dietsch says.
He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, merging his love for both mediums. He believes the core mission remains the same: to deliver an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience, regardless of whether the canvas is a screen or a virtual world. In summary, Wolf Haus’s journey illustrates how a handful of Hollywood‑savvy creators leveraged personal wealth, deep industry connections, and a relentless focus on bespoke tooling to build a large‑scale, high‑quality game without relying on generative AI.
Their story underscores the potential for small, dedicated teams to disrupt traditional development models and deliver ambitious, handcrafted experiences to players worldwide.