The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers ride pigs, unleash machine‑guns, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that originated from a simple, off‑hand suggestion. Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, explains that a team member’s son asked, "Can there be a snake gun?" Thanks to a proprietary scaling tool, Dietsch was able to prototype a functional snake‑shooting firearm in roughly thirty minutes, and the quirky weapon survived into the final game.
That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us. The title is an open‑world sandbox survival experience that lets players recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult. The game’s design philosophy is heavily rooted in technology first, which has allowed Wolf Haus to deliver a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title with a remarkably small crew.
Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed up the ambition: “We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build this with twelve people, and they all thought we were crazy.” The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on shoestring budgets. Abbott notes that many of them came from indie filmmaking, where “punching above your weight” is a daily reality. After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving the studio the runway needed to bring Join Us to life.
Wolf Haus’s leadership team is steeped in Hollywood pedigree. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of actor‑director Mel Gibson—who now serves as a co‑founder. The duo co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie features Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott, meanwhile, is the son of veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, a production house originally founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to the Star Citizen project.
Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. The seed of Join Us sprouted when Dietsch began experimenting with Unreal Engine, drawn by the fact that the engine could be downloaded for free.
“I’d loved games for years, but creating something felt like a massive barrier,” he says. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday cult simulator—a concept that married his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. The proof‑of‑concept demo was a rough, ambitious sandbox that Dietsch showed to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had a film background before moving into games in the early 2000s, contributing writing to titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins through his studio Sekretagent Productions.
He later founded several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis‑formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million. After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh retired to a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to spend his days walking his dog on the beach. That plan was interrupted when his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, called about a video‑game project. Intrigued, Wendschuh reviewed the demo, was “blown away,” and decided to come out of retirement.
He recruited former Warner Bros. Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor, and Schneider brought in 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 daunting task given the industry’s downturn in mid‑2023.
Initial pitches generated interest but no commitments. After partnering with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and re‑pitching in 2024, Wolf Haus secured a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—whose roster includes titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of seasoned veterans such as Schneider and Chartrand for smoothing the path.
Despite the high‑profile backing, the studio has remained intentionally lean, employing only 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is a conscious choice: “We wanted a team where everyone has a voice, everyone touches the creative, and the game feels like it was built by a specific group of people.” To make such an ambitious open‑world possible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains.
This tooling‑first approach consumed much of the first development year, as the team simultaneously designed gameplay concepts and built the software infrastructure needed to support them. The equity financing model gave Wolf Haus the freedom to perfect these tools without the pressure of short‑term milestones. Krafton and Lifelike’s investment is being used to self‑fund the game’s development, with a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing later on.
"Equity partners want the studio to increase enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," says Wendschuh. "Whenever we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a tool to fix it. It may slow us down, but it lets a tiny team create something of this scale." In an industry where generative AI is often touted as a shortcut, Wolf Haus deliberately avoids it for creative work. Dietsch states plainly, "We don’t use any generative AI.
The human touch is essential to us." Wendschuh adds that while they might use AI for administrative tasks like calendar management, none of it touches the artistic side of development. Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, also insisted that Wolf Haus not employ generative AI in the creative pipeline, aligning with the studio’s philosophy. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio.
The six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely hand‑built, and the 15,000 voice lines are recorded by real actors, not synthetic voices. Dietsch believes this human‑centric approach is vital, even for an indie title, because it preserves the authenticity of the experience. Comparing his film background to game development, Dietsch highlights the immediacy of the latter. In movies, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and extensive pre‑production.
In games, an idea can be prototyped the same day, placed into the engine, and iterated on instantly. Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, relying on a few high‑profile talent to secure financing, whereas games have fewer gatekeepers, allowing small teams to achieve success without A‑list names. Both mediums, however, share a core creative impulse: storytelling and delivering an experience. Dietsch reflects that his childhood love of both film and games—spurred by a Christmas camera and programming on a TI‑83—ultimately led him to a career where he can blend cinematic narrative with interactive play.
Join Us stands as a testament to that blend, showcasing how a handful of Hollywood‑savvy developers, armed with custom tools and a refusal to rely on generative AI, can craft a sprawling, high‑quality cult simulator that rivals projects built by far larger studios.