The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, giving viewers a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers ride on pigs, fire machine guns, and the sequence culminates with an image of massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles looming over the scene. What didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that has become a hallmark of the game’s off‑beat charm.
According to Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the idea for the snake‑shooting firearm came from a child’s imagination. "One of our team member’s son asked, ‘Can there be a snake gun?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us scale a weapon in minutes, so I built a snake‑shooting gun in about half an hour. He was thrilled, and the weapon stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls.
This anecdote perfectly illustrates the kind of chaotic, player‑driven gameplay that Join Us promises. The title is an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or other players in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. The game’s design philosophy is deeply rooted in the team’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a small group of developers to produce a high‑fidelity, large‑scale experience. Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We set out to be disruptors.
We told ourselves we didn’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve people could do it. Everyone else thought we were crazy, but we’ve proven them wrong." Wolf Haus’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets. The founders come from indie‑film backgrounds, accustomed to punching well above their weight. Their perseverance paid off after 80 pitch meetings, eventually securing equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital.
Both investors took a stake in the studio, providing the financial runway needed to bring Join Us to life. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of famed actor Mel Gibson, who now serves as a co‑founder. Together they 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 originally founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to the Star Citizen universe. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx, giving him a solid grounding in large‑scale entertainment production.
Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments with Unreal Engine. "Unreal Engine was free to download, and I’d always loved games. The barrier to actually creating something felt huge, so I started learning from YouTube tutorials and tinkering on my own," he explains.
Despite having no formal game‑development background, Dietsch managed to ship a couple of small titles before deciding to tackle something more ambitious. The core concept—a doomsday cult simulator that blends survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—kept resurfacing in his mind. He built a proof‑of‑concept prototype, expecting to hit a technical wall at some point. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and introduced it to Dooma, a partner studio.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, entered the picture after a varied career that spanned film production, screenwriting, and video‑game writing. 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 (approximately $330 million USD). After the sale, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire and enjoy a quiet life.
Retirement, however, was short‑lived. A call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the industry. "I was looking at a video game Joe had made, and it completely blew my mind.
It convinced me to come out of retirement," Wendschuh says. He then brought in Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic (the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet), as a strategic advisor. Schneider recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was funding—a task made tougher by a market downturn that began in mid‑2023. The studio began pitching that summer, receiving mixed reactions. "People liked what we were building but the timing was tough," Dietsch notes.
After initial outreach, they enlisted Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to represent them, returning to the pitch circuit in 2024. Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed a seed round, providing the capital needed to continue development. Wendschuh credits CAA’s network and the presence of seasoned game veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for smoothing the fundraising path.
"My agent at CAA, Derek Douglas, had represented me during my twelve years in games and previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris," Wendschuh recalls. The studio’s lean structure—just 13 full‑time staff members—has become a point of pride.
"We entered the project with a clear understanding of scope and wanted to keep a small‑team culture where everyone’s voice matters and everyone touches the creative process," says Dietsch. To make a massive open‑world title feasible with such a small crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset. "Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person.
We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a six‑kilometre‑square map without the project collapsing under its own weight," Dietsch explains. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and building the underlying tools, a strategy that also lays the groundwork for future projects. Funding from Krafton and Lifelike has been structured as equity, allowing the studio to self‑finance the game's development.
"We’ve used the investors’ capital to fund the entire production, and now we’re only seeking a modest amount of project finance for marketing," Wendschuh says. This equity model aligns the investors’ interests with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the continued development of in‑house tools even if it slows short‑term progress. When asked about the role of generative AI—a hot topic in the industry—both Dietsch and Wendschuh were unequivocal: they do not rely on AI for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential.
We love making games ourselves; handing the process over to an algorithm would defeat the purpose of why we get up each morning," Dietsch asserts. Wendschuh adds that the only AI tools they employ are for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton, which has branded itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The studio’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio.
The six‑kilometre‑square map was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not AI‑generated voices. "That level of human involvement was non‑negotiable for us, even as a small indie studio," Dietsch emphasizes. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between filmmaking and game development.
In film, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and extensive pre‑production. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours, allowing immediate iteration. "You can have an idea in the morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly. That immediacy is exhilarating," he says.
Wendschuh points out that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with massive costs incurred before any footage is shot, often hinging on securing a handful of high‑profile talent. While anyone can technically shoot a movie with a consumer‑grade camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. Game development, by contrast, has far fewer gatekeepers.
"You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game," he notes, highlighting the democratising effect of modern development tools. Both founders agree that, at their core, movies and games share the same creative impulse: to tell stories and deliver experiences. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games.
It came down to a coin toss and whether I got a camera for Christmas. I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been straddling both worlds. Whether it’s film or a game, you’re crafting an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. The medium changes, but the goal stays the same," Dietsch concludes.