The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation. In the clip, robed cultists zip around on pig‑like mounts, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with a nightmarish vision of Cthulhu‑style tentacles. What didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake‑gun, a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a child’s off‑hand suggestion.
"One of the team members’ kids asked, ‘What if there was a snake‑gun?’" Dietsch recalls. "We have a modular weapon system that lets us spin up new guns in minutes, so I whipped up a snake‑shooting firearm in about half an hour.
The kid was ecstatic, and we kept the weapon in the game." That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us. The title is an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult.
It also illustrates Wolf Haus’s technology‑first philosophy, which has enabled a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title to be produced by a remarkably small crew. Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors." "Everyone told us it was impossible to create a game of this scope with just twelve people," Abbott says. "In film we learned to punch far above our weight, so we applied that mindset to games. After 80 pitches we finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital." 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 founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us originated when Dietsch began tinkering in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a huge barrier to actually making one," he explains. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—a concept that married his two passions into a single intellectual property. He developed a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming it would soon hit a technical wall.
When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and presented it to Dooma, a partner studio. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously produced and written for films before transitioning to games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative work 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 selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire and enjoy a quiet life. Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, a call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into development. "I watched the early video of Joe’s game and it blew my mind, so I came out of retirement," Wendschuh says.
He introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet. Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing. The studio began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn.
"People liked what we were building but the market was tough," Dietsch notes. The team secured representation from CAA in Los Angeles, re‑pitched in 2024, and ultimately closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—whose roster includes titles like 007: First Light—and the involvement of seasoned veterans such as Schneider and Chartrand for smoothing the fundraising path. "My agent Derek Douglas had represented me for twelve years in games and previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris," he adds.
Despite the high‑profile backing, Join Us remains a lean operation with only thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model is intentional: "We wanted a setting where everyone has a voice, everyone touches the creative process, and the final product feels like the work of a tightly knit group." To make an ambitious open‑world title feasible with such a compact 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," Dietsch explains. "We built a robust toolkit early on so that when features proliferate across a massive map, the project doesn’t crumble under its own weight.
In fact, a large portion of our first year was spent simultaneously designing gameplay and engineering the tools that would make it possible." The equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed the studio to finance the entire development internally. "The game is essentially self‑funded," Wendschuh says. "We’re now adding a modest amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development budget came from our investors." One of the advantages of equity backing is that investors share the studio’s long‑term vision.
"Our partners want the studio to increase in enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," Wendschuh notes. "Whenever we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we simply create a tool to address it. It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a tiny team to deliver a game of this magnitude." When asked about the role of generative AI, Dietsch is unequivocal: the studio does not employ AI for creative tasks. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Turning development over to an AI would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," he says. Wendschuh adds that the only AI they use is for mundane administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, also discouraged the use of generative AI in Wolf Haus’s creative pipeline. "They wanted to ensure their investment wasn’t tied to a studio that relied on AI for core content creation," Wendschuh explains, noting a similar stance from Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio.
The team’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 synthetic voices. "That was non‑negotiable for us, even as a small indie," Dietsch affirms.
Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and game development. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals and the coordination of high‑profile talent before it ever reaches a set. In contrast, game development offers immediate iteration: "You can have an idea this morning, drop it into the engine, and see it in action within hours.
That immediacy is exhilarating." Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, short‑term bursts of activity on set, whereas games benefit from fewer gatekeepers. "Anyone can rent a camera and shoot a backyard movie, but without star power or distribution, success is unlikely.
Games, however, have a lower barrier to entry—no need for A‑list actors or directors to achieve commercial success." Both creators agree that the core impulse—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 whether I got a camera for Christmas," Dietsch reminisces. "I learned to program on a TI‑83, so both paths have always felt natural. Ultimately, whether you’re crafting a film or a game, you’re aiming to engage an audience and share a narrative.
That fundamental goal never changes."