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 preview, robed followers zip around on pigs, fire machine guns, and the sequence culminates with an image of massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles.
What didn’t make the cut was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that CEO and creative director Joe Dietsch says was born from a child’s off‑hand suggestion. "One of the team members’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’" Dietsch recalls.
"Because we had a fast‑scaling gun‑creation tool, I whipped up a prototype in about thirty minutes. The kid went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the final build." That anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay Join Us promises: an open‑world survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑inspired cult.
It also highlights the studio’s tech‑first philosophy, which has allowed a high‑fidelity title to emerge from a surprisingly lean development team. "We set out to be disruptors," says Wolf Haus COO Michael Abbott.
"Everyone told us you need a hundred people to pull off something like this. We proved them wrong with just twelve core developers." The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets. Abbott notes that many of the staff come from indie‑film backgrounds, accustomed to “punching above their weight.” After eighty pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now hold stakes in the studio. Wolf Haus’s leadership is steeped in Hollywood pedigree.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of 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, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before his Star Citizen venture. 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 there was a huge barrier to creating my own," he explains.
He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually gravitated toward a doomsday‑cult concept that married survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. The proof‑of‑concept grew until Dietsch showed it to Abbott, who then introduced it to Dooma.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games 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. Later, he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million. After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into game development.
Impressed by Dietsch’s demo, Wendschuh recruited former Warner Bros. Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor and brought in Ubisoft Montreal veteran Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand as chief technology officer. Funding proved challenging amid a market downturn in 2023. The studio’s initial outreach yielded interest but no commitments.
After signing with CAA in Los Angeles, they renewed their pitch cycle in 2024 and eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand—for opening doors.
Despite the high ambitions, the entire development team remains under fifteen full‑time members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional: "We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership over the final product." To make such a scope feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch says. The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and constructing the internal toolset that would keep the open‑world map from collapsing under its own weight.
This tooling‑centric approach was supported by the equity investors, who preferred a self‑funded model that allowed the studio to iterate without external pressure. When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not use it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential to game making," Dietsch states.
Wendschuh adds that AI tools are limited to administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, aligning with the studio’s philosophy of preserving jobs for voice actors and artists.
The six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is hand‑crafted, and its 15,000 voice lines were recorded by real performers. Dietsch finds the immediacy of game development liberating compared with film. In cinema, an idea can sit on paper for years before it sees a set, and countless approvals are needed. In games, a concept can be prototyped in hours, allowing developers to see and iterate on their vision instantly.
Wendschuh notes that film production is front‑loaded with high‑stakes negotiations for A‑list talent, whereas games have fewer gatekeepers, making it easier for small teams to bring a product to market. Both mediums, however, share a core creative drive: storytelling and immersive experience. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games, and a coin toss decided which path I’d follow," Dietsch reflects. "Whether it’s a film or a game, the goal is to engage an audience, tell a story, and give them an experience they’ll remember.
That passion fuels everything we do at Wolf Haus, and it’s why Join Us is shaping up to be a uniquely wild, player‑driven cult adventure."