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 teaser, robed followers zip around on pigs, brandish machine guns, and the climax reveals massive, Cthulhu‑inspired tentacles looming over the scene. What the audience didn’t see was the infamous snake‑gun, a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a child’s imagination.
"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 weapon in about thirty minutes, so I built a gun that fires snakes on the spot. The kid was thrilled, and the weapon stuck around in the final build," Dietsch recalls.
This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to a 1970s‑style cult. 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. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors.
We told everyone we could pull off a AAA‑level experience with just twelve people, and most people laughed. But we’d already proven we could punch far above our weight in indie film, so we were confident." The studio’s journey to funding was a marathon of pitches—around eighty in total—before Krafton and Lifelike Capital each took an equity stake, providing the capital needed to bring the game to life.
The founders’ Hollywood roots run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of actor 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 shift to Star Citizen. 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 the barrier to actually creating something seemed huge. I started watching YouTube tutorials and tinkering, eventually making a few small prototypes," he explains. Though he had no formal game‑development background, Dietsch kept returning to the idea of a doomsday cult simulator—a concept that merged his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, ran into technical roadblocks, and showed the result to Abbott, who then introduced the project 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 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 roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After the sale, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet, a call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into development.
"I saw the demo Joe sent me, and it blew my mind. I quit my retirement plan and jumped back in," he says. Wendschuh recruited Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros.
Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic (the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet), as a strategic advisor. Schneider then brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With this core team in place, the next hurdle was financing—an especially tough task during the industry downturn of 2023‑24. The studio enlisted CAA (Creative Artists Agency) for representation, leveraged Schneider’s and Chartrand’s industry clout, and finally closed a seed round with Krafton and Lifelike Capital in 2024.
According to Wendschuh, the CAA connection—also representing titles like 007: First Light—was instrumental, as was the presence of seasoned veterans who could vouch for the project’s credibility. "My old agent Derek Douglas, who handled my game work for twelve years and once headed the video‑game department at William Morris, helped open doors," Wendschuh notes. What truly sets Join Us apart is the scale of its creation relative to the size of its team: just thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the studio deliberately kept the group small to preserve a collaborative atmosphere where every voice matters.
To achieve a game of such breadth, the team invested heavily in internal tooling from day one. "Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person. We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and constructing the tools that would let us expand the open world without it collapsing under its own weight," Dietsch explains. This tool‑first philosophy also aligns with the investors’ expectations.
"Krafton and Lifelike are equity partners; their money finances the game, and they support our tool‑heavy approach because it adds long‑term studio value," says Wendschuh. Despite the buzz around generative AI in game development, Wolf Haus deliberately avoids it for creative tasks.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate core content would defeat why we get up excited every morning," Dietsch asserts. Wendschuh adds that the studio only employs AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton—publicly positioning itself as an “AI‑first” company—insisted that Wolf Haus not use generative AI for artistic work, mirroring similar stances from other Krafton‑owned studios such as Neon Giant.
The commitment to hand‑crafted content is evident: the six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is entirely built by the team, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors. "We wanted every line to feel authentic, even as a small indie," Dietsch says.
Dietsch also highlights a key advantage of games over film: immediacy. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent.
By contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, inserted into the engine, and instantly tested. "That rapid feedback loop is exhilarating," he remarks. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, short‑term bursts of activity followed by long periods of waiting for greenlights.
While anyone can shoot a backyard movie with a cheap camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. Games, however, have fewer gatekeepers; a small studio can reach a global audience without A‑list actors or directors.
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 whether I got a camera for Christmas. I learned to program on a TI‑83, so the passion stayed with me," Dietsch reflects.
"Whether you’re crafting a film or a game, you’re creating an experience, a narrative, and an emotional connection. The tools change, but the goal stays constant."