The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator. In the clip, robed cultists ride on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates in a nightmarish vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that never made it onto the public preview was the "snake gun," a weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was inspired by a child’s off‑hand suggestion.
"One of our team members’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new firearm in about half an hour, so I built a gun that actually fires snakes. The kid was blown away, and the weapon stayed in the final game," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote perfectly captures the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay at the heart of Join Us.
Players inhabit a 1970s‑themed cult, recruiting both AI followers and human co‑op partners to expand their influence across an open‑world environment. The game’s design philosophy mirrors the studio’s broader approach: a high‑fidelity, expansive experience built by a surprisingly small team. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed it up succinctly: "We set out to be disruptors.
We told everyone we could deliver a AAA‑scale title with just twelve people, and most people thought we were crazy." The team’s confidence wasn’t unfounded. Their backgrounds in indie filmmaking taught them to punch well above their weight, leveraging limited budgets for outsized creative output. After a marathon of 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving the studio the financial runway it needed. Wolf Haus’s founders are steeped in Hollywood tradition.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—who later co‑founded the studio. Together they co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie features Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott hails from a lineage of Hollywood makeup artistry; his father, Larry Abbott, is a renowned makeup artist, and Michael helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company originally founded by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
The seed of Join Us sprouted when Dietsch began experimenting with Unreal Engine, drawn by its free availability. "I’d loved games for as long as I’d watched movies, but creating something felt like a massive barrier. I downloaded Unreal, followed YouTube tutorials, and started tinkering," he explains.
Despite having no formal game‑development background, Dietsch produced a few small prototypes before committing to a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming it would eventually hit a technical wall. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and presented it to Dooma, the studio’s early‑stage investor.
Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously worked as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games 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. Later, he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, a call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry.
"I was looking at a game Joe had made, and it completely blew my mind. It convinced me to step out of retirement," Wendschuh recounts.
He then introduced the project to Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet.
Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a veteran Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was funding—a challenge amplified by a broader industry downturn in mid‑2023. Initial pitches generated interest but no commitments.
The studio enlisted Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles to amplify their outreach, returning to investors in 2024 and eventually closing a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection, noting that Derek Douglas, their agent, had previously represented him during his twelve‑year game‑development career and had headed the video‑game department at William Morris.
What truly sets Join Us apart is the way it is being built: a full‑scale open‑world title created by just 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the team entered the project with a clear understanding of its scope, while deliberately preserving a small‑team culture where every voice matters and everyone can influence the creative direction.
To make such an ambitious vision feasible, Wolf Haus invested heavily in internal tooling from day one. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. "We built a robust toolkit so that as features proliferated across the map, the project wouldn’t collapse under its own weight. The first year was as much about inventing tools as it was about designing gameplay." The funding structure further enabled this tool‑centric approach.
Krafton and Lifelike’s equity stakes meant the studio could self‑finance development, using the capital to perfect its pipelines. While some project‑finance is now being allocated for marketing, the core development costs were covered entirely by the investors.
"Equity partners want the studio to increase its enterprise value, so they support our heavy investment in tooling," Wendschuh notes. "When we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we simply build a tool to address it. It may slow us down in the short term, but it lets a tiny team achieve something that would normally require dozens of engineers." In an era where many studios tout generative AI as a shortcut, Wolf Haus deliberately eschews it for creative work. "We don’t use generative AI in the game‑making process," says Dietsch.
"We believe a human touch is essential; handing development over to an algorithm would defeat the very reason we get up every morning." Wendschuh adds that the studio only employs AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting. "We have no AI involvement in art, design, or writing," he affirms. Interestingly, Krafton—publicly positioning itself as an "AI‑first" company—specifically required that Wolf Haus not rely on generative AI for creative production.
This mirrors the stance of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly distanced itself from the parent’s AI pivot. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio.
The six‑kilometre‑square map was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. Dietsch stresses that this human‑centric approach was non‑negotiable, even for a modest indie‑scale project. Transitioning from film to games also gave Dietsch a fresh sense of immediacy. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise—script, green‑light, shoot, edit—whereas in game development an concept can be prototyped within hours.
"I can have an idea at breakfast, drop it into Unreal, and see it instantly," he says, describing the exhilarating feedback loop that keeps him motivated. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, requiring star power and studio approval before a project even begins. While anyone can shoot a low‑budget movie with a backyard camera, breaking through without marquee names or distribution is rare. By contrast, the gaming landscape offers fewer gatekeepers; a small team can release a polished product directly to players without needing A‑list talent.
"You don’t need a Hollywood A‑list actor or director to make a successful game," he notes. Both founders agree that the core creative drive—telling stories and delivering experiences—remains the same across mediums. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games.
It boiled down to a coin toss and getting a camera for Christmas," Dietsch reflects. "Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re crafting an experience, a narrative, and engaging an audience.
The medium changes, but the mission stays identical."