The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers ride pig‑mounted vehicles, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and ultimately confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One of the more memorable, if unexpected, moments that didn’t make the final cut was the appearance of a "snake gun" – a weapon that fires serpents. According to Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the idea came from a team member’s son.
"He asked, ‘What would a snake gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us scale a weapon in minutes, so I built it in about half an hour. The kid went wild, and we kept it in the final build," Dietsch recalls.
That anecdote perfectly illustrates the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us. The game is an open‑world sandbox survival experience set in a 1970s‑style cult, where players can recruit AI followers or invite friends to join their cause in multiplayer mode. It also showcases Wolf Haus’s tech‑first philosophy, which has allowed a small crew to deliver a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title without the massive staffing levels typical of AAA projects. Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors.
We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred people; twelve is enough.’ Most people thought we were crazy, but our background in indie filmmaking taught us how to punch far above our weight." The studio’s journey to funding was a marathon of pitches – roughly eighty in total – before Krafton and Lifelike Capital each took an equity stake in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood connections run deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who later co‑founded Wolf Haus and 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 transition to the Star Citizen universe. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
"Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt blocked by the high entry barrier to actually create something," he explains. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, built a few small prototypes, and eventually settled on the concept of a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. The proof‑of‑concept demo impressed Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, a production partner.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into 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 company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million (about $330 million USD).
After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate Michael Abbott lured him back: "Joe’s demo blew my mind and pulled me out of retirement," Wendschuh says. He then introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former Warner Bros. Games VP and now head of Raccoon Logic, who became a strategic advisor and recruited Ubisoft Montreal veteran Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand as chief technology officer. Securing financing proved difficult amid an industry downturn in 2023‑24.
The team’s early pitches generated interest but no commitments. After partnering with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and leveraging Schneider’s and Chartrand’s industry clout, Wolf Haus finally closed a seed round with Krafton and Lifelike Capital.
Wendschuh notes that CAA’s representation, which also covers titles like 007: First Light, was instrumental, as was the backing of seasoned game veterans. What truly sets Join Us apart is the way it is being built: a full‑scale, open‑world game developed by just 13 full‑time staff. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model was intentional: "We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership of the final product." To make such an ambitious scope feasible, the studio invested heavily in internal tooling from day one.
"Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch says. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and constructing the underlying toolchain that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight.
The equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance the entire development cycle. "The investors are motivated to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," Wendschuh explains.
This approach sometimes slows raw development speed but enables a tiny team to produce a game of this magnitude without outsourcing large portions of the work. When asked about the role of generative AI, both Dietsch and Wendschuh are unequivocal: the studio does not employ AI for creative tasks.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate assets would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," Dietsch says.
Wendschuh adds that while they use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, none of the artistic or narrative work is outsourced to algorithms. Interestingly, Krafton, which publicly brands itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline as a condition of their investment. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map was entirely built by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices.
Dietsch stresses that this was a non‑negotiable decision, even for a modest indie studio. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and game creation. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, subject to studio approvals, casting, and scheduling. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours: "You can have an idea this morning, drop it into the engine, see it instantly, and start iterating," he says.
Wendschuh points out that film production is front‑loaded with high‑stakes negotiations for a few marquee names, whereas games have far fewer gatekeepers; a small team can launch a successful product without needing A‑list talent. Both founders agree that, at their core, filmmaking and game development share a single creative impulse: to craft experiences, tell stories, and engage audiences. Dietsch recalls his childhood fascination with both mediums, noting that a simple coin toss and a Christmas camera set him on a path that ultimately merged his love of programming on a TI‑83 calculator with his passion for narrative. "Whether you’re making a movie or a game, you’re delivering an experience and a story.
The medium changes, but the goal stays the same," he concludes.