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 clip, robed followers zip around on pig‑mounted platforms, firing an assortment of absurd weapons, before the screen fades to a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that originated from an off‑hand comment by a team member’s child.
Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recounted the moment: “My colleague’s son asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a modular weapon system that let us prototype new arms in minutes, so I whipped up a snake‑gun in about half an hour. The kid went nuts, and we kept it in the game.” This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire.
What makes the project even more remarkable is the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger workforce. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: “We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build this with twelve people, and they laughed.
Our background in indie filmmaking taught us how to punch far above our weight.” After an arduous 80‑pitch marathon, the team finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs 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 originally founded by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us sprang from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. “I discovered Unreal was free to download, and that felt like a door opening,” he explained. “I’d been a gamer my whole life, but the barrier to actually creating something seemed huge.
I started learning from YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually decided to tackle something bigger.” The core concept—a doomsday cult simulator that fuses survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—merged his love for movies and games into a single intellectual property. The proof‑of‑concept was built as a sandbox test, with Dietsch pushing the engine to its limits to see where the technology would break. He showed the demo to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, the studio’s early investor. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, arrived from a career that straddles film and games.
He began as a producer and screenwriter in Hollywood, later founding Sekretagent Productions, which supplied narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. In the 2010s he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a sudden call from his old Hollywood‑hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the industry.
"I saw the prototype and it blew my mind," Wendschuh said, prompting him to bring in veteran game executive Reid Schneider (formerly of Warner Bros. Games) as a strategic advisor, and to recruit Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. Funding proved challenging amid an industry downturn that began in 2023. The team’s first pitches were met with enthusiasm for the concept but skepticism about execution.
After partnering with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and refining their pitch deck, Wolf Haus secured a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024. Wendschuh noted that CAA’s representation—also handling titles like 007: First Light—added credibility, while Schneider and Chartrand’s veteran status reassured investors. Despite the high‑profile backing, the studio has remained lean, employing only thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasized that a small team fosters a collaborative culture where everyone contributes creatively.
To make a game of Join Us’s scale feasible with such a limited crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in in‑house tooling from day one. "Every system must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," he explained. "We built a robust toolkit so that as features proliferate across the open‑world map, the project doesn’t collapse under its own weight." This tool‑centric approach consumed much of the first year, as the team simultaneously designed gameplay and constructed the software infrastructure needed to support it.
The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools without the pressure of short‑term milestones. "Krafton and Lifelike are equity partners; their investment funds the development directly," Wendschuh said. "We’re now using a small amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development was entirely self‑funded through their equity stakes." This arrangement aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term vision, encouraging the creation of reusable tools that will benefit future projects. When asked about generative AI, a hot topic in game development, Dietsch gave a clear answer: the studio does not employ AI for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Turning development over to an algorithm would defeat why we get up every morning," he said. Wendschuh added that while the team uses AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, it never touches the artistic side of production.
Interestingly, Krafton—publicly branding itself as an "AI‑first" company—explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio. The 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 synthetic voices.
"Even as a tiny indie, we felt it was crucial to preserve that human element," Dietsch noted. Dietsch also reflected on the differences between film and game creation. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and massive budgets before a director sees the finished product.
In contrast, a game developer can prototype an idea in a single morning, drop it into the engine, and instantly iterate. "That immediacy is exhilarating," he said. Wendschuh observed that film production is heavily front‑loaded: securing a handful of A‑list talent often determines whether a project gets greenlit. While anyone can technically shoot a movie with a consumer‑grade camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare.
Game development, however, faces fewer gatekeepers; a small team can ship a successful title without celebrity endorsements. "We don’t need an A‑list actor or director to reach players," he explained. 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 maybe getting a camera for Christmas," Dietsch recalled. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, a skill that later merged with his cinematic passions. "Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re crafting an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. The medium changes, but the mission stays constant."