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‑mounted platforms, wielding machine guns before the screen erupts into an image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles.
One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake‑gun, a quirky weapon that emerged from a spontaneous idea by a team member’s child. According to Joe Dietsch, CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the youngster asked, “Can there be a snake gun?” Leveraging an in‑house tool that lets the team prototype weapons in minutes, Dietsch whipped up a functional snake‑shooter in roughly half an hour.
The novelty impressed the kid so much that the weapon stayed in the final build, exemplifying the off‑the‑wall gameplay that Join Us promises. Join Us is an open‑world sandbox survival experience set in a 1970s‑style cult environment.
Players can recruit NPC followers or invite friends in co‑op mode to expand their bizarre congregation. The game’s chaotic tone mirrors the development philosophy of Wolf Haus: a small, tech‑savvy crew aiming to punch far above its weight. Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: “We wanted to be disruptors.
We told everyone we could build a AAA‑level experience with just twelve people, and most people laughed.” The team’s confidence stems from a background in low‑budget, high‑impact filmmaking. Many of the founders grew up in Hollywood circles. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—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, a production house originally founded by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. This cinematic pedigree taught them how to stretch limited resources, a skill that proved essential when they began pitching Join Us.
After roughly eighty pitch meetings, Wolf Haus finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital. Both firms took a stake in the studio, providing the seed money needed to move from prototype to full production.
The funding round was especially challenging because it arrived during a market downturn in mid‑2023, yet the team’s persistence paid off. The genesis of Join Us can be traced back to Dietsch’s early experiments with Unreal Engine.
He recalls downloading the free engine and learning its basics through YouTube tutorials, despite having no formal training in game development. After creating a handful of modest titles, he returned to a concept that had lingered in his mind for years: a doomsday cult simulator that merged survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, ran it past Abbott, and the idea quickly gained momentum within the studio.
Another key figure, Dooma Wendschuh, entered the picture after a long career that spanned film production, screenwriting, and video‑game narrative work. In the early 2000s he founded Sekretagent Productions, delivering writing services for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis‑formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (about US$330 million).
After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire. However, a chance call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry. Impressed by the Join Us demo, he joined the studio, bringing on former Warner Bros.
Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor and recruiting Ubisoft Montreal veteran Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand as chief technology officer. With the core leadership in place, the next hurdle was financing.
The team began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by industry contraction. Initial outreach yielded interest but no commitments. After enlisting Creative Artists Agency (CAA) as representation and re‑approaching investors in 2024, Wolf Haus closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—particularly his long‑time agent Derek Douglas, who had represented him during his twelve‑year game‑development stint—and the credibility of veteran advisors like Schneider and Chartrand for smoothing the path.
What truly sets Join Us apart is the way it is being built. Wolf Haus operates with a lean roster of just thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that everyone on the team wears multiple hats, contributes to creative decisions, and has direct access to the game’s core systems. To make such an ambitious open‑world title feasible with a small crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset.
"If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. "We built a toolkit that lets one developer iterate quickly, so when features proliferate across the map, the project doesn’t collapse under its own weight." The funding structure also supports this tooling‑first approach. Because Krafton and Lifelike are equity partners, the capital they injected is treated as internal financing for the game’s development rather than external debt. This arrangement gives Wolf Haus the freedom to allocate resources toward building robust pipelines, even if it slows short‑term progress.
The studio believes that the long‑term payoff—greater flexibility, higher quality, and a sustainable development rhythm—justifies the upfront investment. In an era where many studios tout generative‑AI shortcuts, Wolf Haus deliberately avoids AI for creative tasks. Dietsch states unequivocally, "We don’t use generative AI in the creative process.
The human touch is essential to the experience we want to deliver." Wendschuh adds that the team only employs AI tools for administrative chores like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton, which has publicly branded itself as an “AI‑first” company, insisted that its portfolio studios refrain from using generative AI for game creation.
This stance mirrors similar policies at Krafton‑owned Neon Giant, which also denied employing AI in its pipelines. The studio’s 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 features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors—an impressive feat for an indie‑scale project. Dietsch believes that preserving this level of artisanal detail is vital for player immersion and for maintaining the game’s distinctive, off‑beat personality.
Reflecting on the differences between film and game production, Dietsch notes the immediacy of interactive media. In cinema, a concept may sit on a page for years before it reaches a set, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent. By contrast, a game idea can be prototyped in a matter of hours, allowing creators to see their vision come to life almost instantly.
Wendschuh echoes this sentiment, observing that film production is heavily front‑loaded with pre‑production logistics, while games benefit from a relatively low barrier to entry and fewer gatekeepers. "You don’t need an A‑list star or director to make a successful game," he says, "the medium itself democratizes creation." Both founders trace their passion back to childhood.
Dietsch recalls wanting to make either movies or games at age six, a decision that ultimately hinged on receiving a camera for Christmas. He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, laying the groundwork for a career that now straddles both mediums. He concludes that, regardless of format, the core objective remains the same: to craft an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience.