The trailer for Join Us first caught many eyes when it was featured in the Xbox Showcase back in June. The brief glimpse revealed a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator, complete with robed followers riding pig‑back while firing machine guns, and it closed on a nightmarish vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles.
What didn’t make the cut, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—was the infamous "snake gun." "One of the developer’s kids came up with the idea and asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We have a rapid‑prototyping tool that lets us spin up a weapon in minutes, so within half an hour I built a gun that actually fires snakes. The kid was blown away, and the weapon stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls. This anecdote perfectly illustrates the kind of chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult and wreak havoc. The development philosophy behind the title is equally unorthodox.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, says the studio set out to be "disruptors" from day one. "We told everyone we could build a AAA‑level experience with just a dozen people. Most people laughed and said it was impossible," he says.
Their confidence stems from a background in independent filmmaking, where small crews routinely punch far above their weight. The team endured 80 pitch meetings before finally securing equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the fledgling studio. Wolf Haus’s leadership is steeped in Hollywood history. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who now co‑founder of the studio.
Together they co‑wrote and co‑directed indie features such as Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott, the son of veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott, helped launch Ascendant Pictures—the production house founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to the Star Citizen universe—and later produced films like Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
The seed of Join Us sprouted when Dietsch began experimenting in Unreal Engine. "Unreal is free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a huge barrier to actually creating something," he explains. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday cult simulator that merged his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the concept quickly moved forward.
Dooma Wendschuh, the studio’s CFO and narrative director, entered the picture after a varied career that spans film production, screenwriting, and video‑game writing. 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 (about $330 million USD).
After that windfall, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a phone call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the industry. "I saw the demo Joe sent me and it completely blew my mind, so I came out of retirement," he says. Wendschuh then recruited Reid Schneider—former Warner Bros.
Games VP and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet—as a strategic advisor, and brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With this core assembled, the next hurdle was financing, a challenge made tougher by a market downturn in 2023. The team initially pitched independently, later partnering with CAA in Los Angeles, and continued pitching throughout 2024 until Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed the seed round.
The backing from CAA proved valuable; the agency also represents high‑profile titles like 007: First Light, and its connections helped open doors. "Derek Douglas, our agent at CAA, had been my agent during my twelve‑year game‑making career and previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris," Wendschuh notes. Despite the high ambitions, the studio remains tiny—just 13 full‑time staff members.
Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional: "We wanted a setting where every voice matters, where everyone can touch the creative process, and where the final product feels like it was crafted by a close‑knit group." To make a large‑scale, high‑fidelity game feasible with such a lean crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset. "Any system in the game has to be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. The first year of development was split between designing gameplay concepts and building the underlying toolset that would allow those concepts to expand across a six‑kilometre‑square open world without collapsing under their own complexity. The equity funding model gave the studio the runway needed to perfect these tools.
"Krafton and Lifelike’s investment finances the entire development, making the game essentially self‑funded," Wendschuh says. "We’re now only seeking a modest amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development has been covered by our investors." One of the most striking aspects of Wolf Haus’s approach is its staunch rejection of generative AI for creative work. While many studios are experimenting with AI‑generated assets, Wolf Haus deliberately avoids it. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Using AI to replace creative decisions would defeat the reason we get up every morning," Dietsch asserts. Wendschuh adds that the only AI tools they employ are mundane productivity assistants for scheduling and email—nothing that influences design, art, or narrative. Even Krafton, which has branded itself an "AI‑first" company, insisted that Wolf Haus not use generative AI in the creative pipeline.
This mirrors the stance of other Krafton‑owned studios such as Neon Giant, which publicly denied using AI for game development. Both investors appear keen to protect the artistic integrity of their portfolio titles.
The commitment to hand‑crafted content extends to the game's massive map and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors. Dietsch stresses that this level of manual effort was non‑negotiable, even for an indie‑scale project. "When you build a world of that size, you want every corner to feel lived‑in, and that requires human nuance," he says. Transitioning from film to games offered Dietsch a different kind of immediacy.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring countless approvals and a lengthy production schedule. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and instantly visualized. This rapid feedback loop fuels the studio’s creative energy.
Wendschuh points out that film production is heavily front‑loaded: securing high‑profile directors or actors is often the gatekeeper to green‑lighting a project. While anyone can technically shoot a movie with a backyard camera, breaking through without established names is rare. Games, however, have far fewer gatekeepers.
"You don’t need an A‑list star or director to make a successful game," he explains, highlighting the democratizing power of interactive media. Both Dietsch and Wendschuh agree that storytelling remains the core driver, regardless of medium. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It boiled down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera," Dietsch reflects.
"Whether you’re crafting a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. The tools change, but the goal stays the same."