The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, giving viewers a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers charge on pig‑back while firing machine guns, culminating in a shot of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the edit, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—is the infamous snake gun. "One of our team members’ kids came up with the idea and asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooter look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that lets us scale weapons in minutes, so within half an hour I built a gun that fires snakes.
The kid went nuts, and the weapon stuck around in the final build," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to a 1970s‑style cult and unleash absurd weaponry across a six‑kilometre‑square map. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a tiny crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff. "We set out to be disruptors," says Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer.
"We told ourselves, ‘We don’t need a hundred people; twelve will do.’ Everyone else thought we were crazy." The team’s confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where small budgets often force crews to punch well above their weight. After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving the studio the financial runway to keep the roster lean.
Wolf Haus’s founders are steeped in Hollywood lore. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—who later co‑founded the studio. The pair 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, the production company started by Chris Roberts before his Star Citizen days.
Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 with Jamie Foxx. Join Us began as a hobby project in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt the barrier to creating something was huge," Dietsch explains. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually gravitated toward a doomsday cult simulator—a concept that fused his love of survival games with grindhouse cinema.
The initial proof‑of‑concept was deliberately ambitious. "I pushed it as far as I could, expecting to hit a wall at some point," Dietsch says. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and introduced it to Dooma, a production partner. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO 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 work 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 C$430 million (about $330 million).
After cashing out, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, planning a quiet retirement. That plan was interrupted when an old Hollywood‑hills roommate, Michael Abbott, called. "He said a friend had made a video game and wanted me to look at it," Wendschuh recounts. The demo blew his mind and pulled him back into development.
He then brought in Reid Schneider—formerly a vice president at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic—to act as a strategic advisor, and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a veteran Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With the core leadership in place, the studio turned to fundraising during a market downturn in the summer of 2023.
Initial pitches generated interest but also skepticism. After partnering with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and refining their pitch, Wolf Haus secured a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024.
Wendschuh credits CAA’s representation—also handling titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of industry veterans for opening doors that might otherwise have stayed shut. Despite the high‑profile backing, the development team remains tiny: thirteen full‑time staff members.
"We wanted everyone to have a voice and touch the creative process," says Dietsch. To keep a project of this scale manageable, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "Any system in the game has to be scalable and debuggable by a single person," he notes.
The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and building the internal toolset that would later allow the team to expand features across the open world without the codebase collapsing under its own weight. The funding structure also shaped the studio’s approach. Krafton and Lifelike hold equity stakes, and their capital has been used to self‑fund the game’s development.
"We’re essentially financing the game ourselves with investor money," Wendschuh explains. "We’ve started to take on a small amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development has been covered by the equity partners." This model encourages the studio to invest in tools rather than cut corners, because the investors benefit from the studio’s long‑term enterprise value. When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—Dietsch gives a blunt answer: the studio does not use it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Turning development over to an AI would defeat the reason we get up every morning," he says. Wendschuh adds that the only AI tools they employ are mundane productivity assistants for scheduling and email.
Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline. This mirrors a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio, which publicly distanced itself from the parent’s AI pivot. Both studios argue that AI threatens jobs for voice actors, artists, and other creatives.
Accordingly, Join Us’s six‑kilometre map is entirely handcrafted, and its 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—a point the team stresses as a badge of authenticity. Dietsch reflects on the differences between film and games. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and studio greenlights before a director ever sees a set.
By contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, inserted into an engine, and instantly visualized. "That immediacy is exhilarating," he says.
Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded: securing a few high‑profile directors or actors is often the biggest hurdle to greenlighting a project. While anyone can shoot a low‑budget movie with a backyard camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. Game development, however, has far fewer gatekeepers. "You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game," he observes, highlighting the democratizing potential of interactive media.
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 a Christmas camera," Dietsch smiles.
He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, a skill that later merged with his cinematic instincts. Whether through film or interactive play, the goal is to immerse an audience, spark emotion, and leave a lasting impression. Join Us thus stands as a testament to what a small, motivated team with Hollywood lineage, savvy business acumen, and a commitment to handcrafted artistry can achieve—without leaning on the latest AI shortcuts.
The game promises a bizarre, weapon‑laden cult adventure, built by a dozen passionate developers who chose to write their own tools, fund their own vision, and keep the human element at the heart of every pixel.