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‑back, firing machine guns, before the screen erupts into an image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles.
What didn’t make the final cut was the absurdly entertaining "snake gun," a weapon that actually shoots serpents. According to Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the idea came from a team member’s child who asked, “Can there be a snake gun?” Leveraging an in‑house tool that lets the studio spin up weapons in minutes, Dietsch built a prototype in roughly thirty minutes. The result was a quirky, instantly memorable weapon that survived into the final build.
That anecdote captures the spirit of Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. The game’s chaotic, over‑the‑top design is a direct reflection of Wolf Haus’s technology‑first philosophy, which has allowed a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a much larger staff.
Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed it up succinctly: “We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑ish game with a dozen people, and they laughed.” The team’s confidence wasn’t unfounded. All of the founders came from backgrounds where they routinely punched far above their budgetary weight.
Abbott grew up in a Hollywood make‑up family—his father is veteran artist Larry Abbott—and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production house originally founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to Star Citizen. He later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, and together they co‑wrote and co‑directed indie features like Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Their shared experience in low‑budget indie cinema taught them how to stretch resources, a lesson that proved invaluable when they turned to video games.
Wolf Haus’s path to funding was a marathon of pitches. After 80 presentations, the studio finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital. Both investors took a stake in the company, providing the capital needed to turn the prototype into a full‑blown product. The financing round came at a difficult time for the industry, with a market downturn already in full swing.
Yet the studio’s pedigree—bolstered by representation from CAA and strategic advisors like former Warner Bros. Games VP Reid Schneider—helped them break through the noise. A key figure in the studio’s story is Dooma Wendschuh, who serves as chief financial officer and narrative director. Wendschuh began his career as a producer and screenwriter in Hollywood before moving into games in the early 2000s, founding Sekretagent Productions, which supplied writing talent for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
He later built several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (about US$330 million). After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry, ultimately leading him to champion Join Us and help secure its financing.
The technical foundation of Join Us was laid by Dietsch’s early experiments with Unreal Engine. He recalls downloading the free engine, watching YouTube tutorials, and creating tiny test games before deciding to tackle something far more ambitious: a doomsday cult simulator that married survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
The initial proof‑of‑concept was deliberately built to test the limits of the studio’s tools. "I assumed I’d hit a wall at some point," Dietsch says, "a technical barrier that would prove the project impossible." When he showed the demo to Abbott, Abbott immediately saw its potential and introduced it to Dooma, who then brought in Schneider and CTO Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer. One of the most striking aspects of Wolf Haus’s development pipeline is its emphasis on custom tooling. With only a dozen full‑time staff, the studio needed every system to be scalable, debuggable, and operable by a single person.
Dietsch explains that the first year of development was split roughly 50/50 between designing gameplay and building the underlying tools that would allow the game to grow without collapsing under its own weight. This approach paid dividends: the studio could iterate rapidly, add new mechanics, and expand the six‑kilometre‑square map—all while keeping the team lean.
Funding from Kraftor and Lifelike was structured as equity, meaning the studio could self‑finance the development without external pressure to cut corners. "Our investors are incentivized to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑heavy ethos," Wendschuh notes. This philosophy extends to the creative process as well. While many studios have turned to generative AI for asset creation, Wolf Haus deliberately avoids it.
"We believe a human touch is essential for games," Dietsch says. "Using AI to generate core content would defeat the reason we get up every morning—to create something ourselves." Wendschuh adds that the studio does use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, but never for artistic work.
Interestingly, Krafton—a company that has publicly branded itself as "AI‑first"—specifically required that Wolf Haus not employ generative AI in its creative pipeline. This mirrors a broader industry trend where investors and developers push back against AI‑driven content creation, fearing it could erode jobs for voice actors, artists, and other creatives. Accordingly, the entire 15,000‑line voice script for Join Us was recorded by human talent, and every corner of the game world was handcrafted.
For Dietsch, the shift from film to games offers a unique immediacy. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, often requiring the approval of high‑profile directors and actors before a studio greenlights production.
In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and instantly visualized. "You can see it, you can touch it, and that instant feedback is exhilarating," he explains. Wendschuh agrees, noting that film production is heavily front‑loaded with pre‑production logistics, whereas games allow creators to bypass many traditional gatekeepers.
"You don’t need an A‑list star or director to make a successful game," he says, highlighting the democratizing power of interactive media. Both founders reflect on how their childhood passions converged: Dietsch learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, while his early fascination with cameras and storytelling led him down the film path. He believes that whether one is making movies or games, the core mission remains the same—crafting an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience.
Join Us stands as a testament to that belief, showcasing how a small, Hollywood‑infused team can produce a sprawling, high‑quality title without relying on generative AI, instead leaning on bespoke tools, seasoned talent, and a relentless willingness to defy industry expectations.