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 followers charge on pig‑back while firing machine guns, culminating in a shot of massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that CEO and creative director Joe Dietsch says was born from a child’s imagination.
According to Dietsch, a team member’s son asked, “What would a snake gun look like?” Using a rapid‑prototyping tool the studio had built, Dietsch was able to script a functional snake‑shooting weapon in roughly thirty minutes. The result delighted the youngster and earned a permanent place in the game, exemplifying the sort of off‑the‑wall gameplay Join Us promises. Join Us is an open‑world sandbox survival experience set in a 1970s‑style cult.
Players can recruit AI followers or invite friends in co‑op mode to build and manage their own eccentric community. The game’s chaotic tone mirrors the development philosophy at Wolf Haus Games, a studio that deliberately set out to prove that a high‑quality, high‑fidelity title can be produced by a remarkably small team. COO Michael Abbott summed up the ambition: “We wanted to be disruptors. We told ourselves we could do everything with twelve people, and everyone else thought we were insane.” The team’s confidence stems from a background in low‑budget, high‑impact indie filmmaking.
“We come from indie films and we’re used to punching well above our weight,” Abbott explained. After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now hold stakes in the studio.
Wolf Haus’s leadership carries deep Hollywood connections. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—who co‑founded the studio and co‑wrote the movies Happy Hunting and Manifest West with Dietsch. Abbott is the son of veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, a production house founded by Chris Roberts before he moved on to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
The seed of Join Us sprouted when Dietsch began experimenting with Unreal Engine after discovering it was free to download. “I’d loved games for years, but the barrier to actually create something felt huge,” he said.
He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. The proof‑of‑concept grew into a demo that impressed Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, the studio’s early backer. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, entered the gaming world after a career in film production and screenwriting.
In the early 2000s he founded Sekretagent Productions, providing writing services 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. After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry.
Wendschuh was immediately struck by Dietsch’s demo and agreed to join the effort. He recruited former Warner Bros. Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor and brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
Funding proved challenging amid an industry downturn. The team began pitching in summer 2023, initially receiving polite interest but little commitment. After aligning with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and refining their pitch, they secured a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024.
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 helping break through the slump. Despite the modest headcount—thirteen full‑time staff members—Wolf Haus has managed to retain a collaborative atmosphere where every employee can influence the creative direction.
Dietsch emphasizes that the studio built extensive internal tools from day one. “If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” he explained. The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and engineering the toolset that would keep the open‑world project from collapsing under its own weight.
This tooling‑first approach also serves future projects, ensuring the studio can reuse and extend its pipelines. The equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑fund the entire development cycle. While a small amount of project finance is being used for marketing, the core production costs have been covered by the investors.
This arrangement aligns the investors’ interests with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the team to continue building robust tools rather than cutting corners. When asked about the role of generative AI, Dietsch gave a clear answer: the studio does not employ it in any creative capacity. “We believe a human touch is essential to game making.
Turning development over to an AI would defeat the purpose of why we get up in the morning,” he said. Wendschuh added that the only AI tools they use are mundane productivity aids for scheduling and email. Interestingly, Krafton—publicly positioning itself as an “AI‑first” company—specifically required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative process, echoing similar statements from Krafton‑owned Neon Giant.
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.
Dietsch stresses that preserving this artisanal quality was a priority, even for an indie‑scale title. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between filmmaking and game development. In film, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and studio green‑lights.
In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours: “You can have an idea in the morning, drop it into the engine, see it instantly, and start iterating,” he said. Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with massive logistical hurdles before shooting even begins, whereas games face fewer gatekeepers and can succeed without A‑list talent. Both mediums, however, share a common creative impulse: storytelling and delivering an experience.
Dietsch recalls that as a child he wanted to make either movies or games, and the path he took was almost a coin toss. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator and has never stopped being fascinated by interactive narratives. The story of Join Us, its unconventional development model, and the Hollywood‑infused pedigree of its creators illustrate how a small, focused team can challenge industry norms and produce a game that is both technically impressive and wildly original.