The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation. 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 final edit was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that originated from a casual suggestion by a team member’s child. According to Joe Dietsch, the game’s CEO and creative director, the youngster asked, “Could there be a snake gun?” Thanks to an in‑house tool that lets the team prototype weapons in minutes, Dietsch whipped up a snake‑shooting firearm in roughly half an hour.
The result was a quirky, memorable addition that still appears in the finished product. That anecdote captures the chaotic, player‑driven experience Join Us aims to deliver.
The title is an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit NPC followers—or invite friends in co‑op—to build a 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a small group to produce a high‑fidelity, large‑scale experience. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up the ambition: “We wanted to be disruptors.
We told ourselves we could do everything with a dozen people, even though everyone else thought that was impossible.” The team’s confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where they learned to achieve big results on modest budgets. “We come from indie films and we’re used to punching well above our weight,” Abbott explained. After 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 history. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, the 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 is the son of renowned makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
The seed of Join Us was planted when Dietsch began experimenting with Unreal Engine. “I discovered Unreal was free to download and thought, ‘Why not give it a try?’” he recalled. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, eventually creating a few small prototypes. The concept that stuck with him was a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—a hybrid of his favorite film and game tropes.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, expecting to hit technical roadblocks quickly. When he showed the prototype to Abbott, the latter took it to Dooma, a partner that helped refine the vision. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had a film background 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 company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million. After a brief retirement—during which he bought a remote Canadian island restaurant—Wendschuh received an unexpected call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott. Abbott told him about a video‑game project Joe had built, and Wendschuh was instantly intrigued.
He watched the demo, was “blown away,” and decided to come out of retirement to help. He introduced the game 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, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With the core team in place, the next hurdle was financing—a daunting task during the industry downturn of 2023‑24. The studio began pitching in summer 2023, receiving positive feedback but facing a tight market. They eventually partnered with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Los Angeles, which helped them secure a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Wendschuh believes the CAA connection, along with veteran advisors like Schneider and Chartrand, was crucial. “Derek Douglas, our agent at CAA, was also my agent when I was making games for twelve years,” he noted. Despite the high aspirations, Join Us is being built by just 13 full‑time staff members.
Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team approach is intentional: “We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership of the game.” To make such an ambitious title feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explained.
The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and engineering the tools that would later support the open‑world map, ensuring the project wouldn’t collapse under its own weight. The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect these tools.
Krafton and Lifelike’s capital financed the entire development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. Because the investors hold equity, they are motivated to see the studio increase in enterprise value, which aligns with Wolf Haus’s philosophy of building reusable tools for future projects.
When asked about the role of generative AI, both Dietsch and Wendschuh were unequivocal: the studio does not employ AI for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential in game development," Dietsch said. "We might use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management, but never for design, art, or writing." Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, also insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline.
This stance mirrors that of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly rejected AI‑driven development. Wendschuh stressed that AI threatens jobs for voice actors and artists, and the studio wants to protect those roles. Consequently, the six‑kilometer‑square map in Join Us is handcrafted, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human talent. Dietsch finds the immediacy of game development liberating compared to film.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and extensive pre‑production. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning and instantly visualized within the engine. This rapid iteration fuels his enthusiasm. Wendschuh adds that film production is front‑loaded with high‑stakes logistics, often dependent on securing a handful of A‑list directors or actors to obtain studio backing.
While anyone can technically shoot a movie with a backyard camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. Game development, on the other hand, has fewer gatekeepers; a small team can create and release a successful title without celebrity involvement. Both founders agree that whether you’re making movies or games, the core mission remains the same: to craft an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience. Dietsch reflected on his childhood fascination with both mediums, noting that a simple Christmas gift—a camera—set him on a path that could have led to either industry.
Today, his hybrid background informs Join Us, a game that blends cinematic flair with interactive depth, all built by a lean, tool‑centric team that refuses to rely on generative AI.