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 zip around on pigs, fire machine guns, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One of the most memorable moments that didn’t make the final cut was the appearance of a snake‑shooting weapon, a quirky addition that originated from a simple conversation. Joe Dietsch, the chief executive officer and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recounts that a team member’s son asked, “What if there was a snake gun?” Leveraging a rapid‑prototyping tool the studio had built, Dietsch was able to design a functional snake‑shooting firearm in roughly thirty minutes.
The novelty delighted the youngster and earned a permanent spot in the game. That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us.
The title is an open‑world sandbox survival experience set in a 1970s‑style cult, where players can recruit AI followers or invite friends to join their growing congregation. The gameplay is intentionally wild, encouraging experimentation and absurdity, and it reflects the development team’s technology‑first mindset. Michael Abbott, the chief operating officer of Wolf Haus, explains that the studio set out to be “disruptors” by proving that a high‑fidelity, content‑rich game could be built by a very small crew. “We told everyone we could pull this off with just twelve people,” he says, “and most people thought we were dreaming.” Their confidence stems from a background in low‑budget indie filmmaking, where they learned to stretch limited resources to their breaking point.
Wolf Haus’s journey to funding was a marathon of pitches—about eighty in total—before securing equity investments from Krafton and Lifelike Capital. Both investors took a stake in the studio, providing the capital necessary to move from prototype to full production. The founding team’s Hollywood connections run deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of actor‑director Mel Gibson, and the two later co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie films Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott is the son of renowned makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, a production company originally founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to the Star Citizen universe.
Abbott’s résumé also includes producing the Jamie Foxx‑led feature Fight for ’84. The seed of Join Us was planted when Dietsch began tinkering with Unreal Engine after discovering it could be downloaded for free. “I’d loved games my whole life, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge,” he explains. He started learning through YouTube tutorials, building a few modest projects before deciding to chase a larger vision.
The concept—a doomsday cult simulator that melds survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—kept resurfacing in his mind. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming he would eventually hit a technical wall that would force him to abandon the idea. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter immediately recognized its potential and presented it to Dooma, a production partner.
Dooma Wendschuh, who serves as Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to video‑game writing in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative services for titles such as 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 (US$330 million). After the sale, Wendschuh purchased a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire.
However, a sudden call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the industry. Impressed by Dietsch’s demo, Wendschuh re‑entered the fray, bringing on strategic advisor Reid Schneider—formerly a vice president at Warner Bros. Games—and recruiting Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a veteran Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. Funding proved to be the next major hurdle.
The team began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. While the game’s concept consistently garnered interest—people would say, “That’s cool”—securing capital was challenging.
After an initial wave of outreach, Wolf Haus enlisted the representation of Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles and relaunched their pitch campaign in 2024. Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed a seed round, providing the financial runway needed to continue development. The partnership with CAA, which also represents titles like 007: First Light, proved invaluable. Derek Douglas, Wolf Haus’s agent at CAA, had previously represented Wendschuh during his twelve‑year stint in game development and had headed the video‑game department at William Morris.
This pedigree, combined with the expertise of Schneider and Chartrand, helped convince investors that a twelve‑person studio could deliver a AAA‑level experience. Today, Join Us is being built by just thirteen full‑time staff members.
The team deliberately keeps its size small to preserve a collaborative atmosphere where every voice matters and each employee can influence the creative direction. To make such an ambitious project feasible with limited manpower, Wolf Haus 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. The studio devoted a substantial portion of its first year to building a flexible toolkit that would allow features to proliferate across the open‑world map without causing the project to collapse under its own weight.
This tool‑first philosophy not only streamlines current development but also lays the groundwork for future titles. The equity financing model gave Wolf Haus the luxury of time to perfect these tools.
Krafton and Lifelike’s capital was used primarily to self‑fund the game’s production, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing later in the cycle. Because the investors hold equity, they are motivated to see the studio increase its enterprise value, which aligns with Wolf Haus’s ethos of building reusable tools rather than taking shortcuts. A frequent question for small studios today revolves around the use of generative AI. Wolf Haus takes a clear stance: they do not employ generative AI for any creative aspects of game development.
"We believe a human touch is essential," says Dietsch. "Turning the creative process over to an algorithm would defeat the purpose of why we get up every morning to make games." The team does use AI‑powered services for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, but nothing that influences art, design, or narrative.
Interestingly, Krafton—despite branding itself as an “AI‑first” company—specifically required that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar policy at Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map of Join Us is entirely hand‑crafted, and the title features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by professional actors. This dedication to human‑generated assets underscores the studio’s belief that creativity should remain a fundamentally human endeavour.
Dietsch also reflects on the differences between filmmaking and game development. In film, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent before a studio greenlights production.
By contrast, a game idea can be prototyped within hours and tested instantly in an engine, offering a level of immediacy that he finds exhilarating. Wendschuh adds that while film production is heavily front‑loaded—requiring massive coordination before shooting—games allow for iterative development with far fewer gatekeepers. "You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game," he notes, highlighting the democratizing potential of interactive media. Both founders trace their passion back to childhood.
Dietsch recalls that at six years old he was torn between making movies or games, a decision that hinged on whether he received a camera for Christmas. He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, laying the foundation for a career that now bridges both mediums.
Ultimately, he believes the core purpose remains the same: to craft experiences, tell stories, and engage audiences, regardless of whether the canvas is a screen or a virtual world.