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 blasting machine guns, culminating in a nightmarish vision of Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous “snake gun,” a quirky weapon that developer Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a child’s imagination. According to Dietsch, a team member’s son asked, “Can there be a snake gun?” The studio had built a modular weapon system that allowed rapid prototyping, so within roughly thirty minutes Dietsch scripted a gun that fires serpents.
The kid’s delight was palpable, and the weapon survived into the final build, exemplifying the kind of chaotic, player‑driven fun 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 into co‑op mode, building a bizarre community that mixes grindhouse cinema aesthetics with survival mechanics. The game’s design philosophy mirrors the studio’s own approach: lean, tool‑centric, and deliberately disruptive. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed it up: “We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑quality experience with just twelve people.
Most thought we were crazy.” The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on shoestring budgets. Many of the founders cut their teeth on independent film projects, learning how to stretch resources and punch well above their weight. Before securing any external capital, Wolf Haus delivered eighty pitches, eventually earning equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital. Both investors now hold stakes in the studio and provide the financial backbone for development.
The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs 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 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 the Star Citizen universe.
Abbott’s résumé also includes producing credits on films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s experimentation in Unreal Engine.
“I discovered Unreal was free to download and started tinkering after watching YouTube tutorials,” he recalls. Despite having no formal game‑development background, he built a handful of small prototypes before deciding to tackle something larger—a doomsday cult simulator that fused his love of survival games with the aesthetic of grindhouse movies.
He created a proof‑of‑concept demo, ran it past Abbott, and the latter introduced it to Dooma, a partner studio that helped refine the concept. Another key player, Dooma’s CFO and narrative director Dooma Wendschuh, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s.
He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. In the 2010s he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After cashing out, he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a call from his old Hollywood‑hillroommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry, leading him to champion Join Us and recruit industry veterans such as former Warner Bros. Games VP Reid Schneider and Ubisoft Montreal veteran Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand as strategic advisor and CTO, respectively.
Funding proved to be the biggest hurdle. The studio began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn.
Initial meetings generated enthusiasm for the concept but fell short of securing capital. After aligning with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Los Angeles and refining their pitch, Wolf Haus returned to the market in 2024 and finally closed a seed round with Krafton and Lifelike Capital. The involvement of CAA—also representing titles like 007: First Light—alongside seasoned game veterans gave investors confidence in the team’s ability to deliver.
What truly sets Join Us apart is the way it is being built. Wolf Haus operates with just thirteen full‑time staff members, a size more typical of an indie studio than a large‑scale open‑world project. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model is intentional: “We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership over the final product.” To make such an ambitious vision feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one.
Any system in the game had to be scalable and debuggable by a single developer, ensuring that as the world expands, the codebase doesn’t crumble under its own weight. In practice, this meant that the first year of development was split evenly between designing gameplay concepts and engineering the underlying toolchain that would support future projects. The equity‑funded model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools.
Krafton and Lifelike’s capital was used primarily to self‑finance development, with only a modest amount earmarked for marketing later in the cycle. This arrangement aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term value creation: the backers encourage extensive tool development because it raises the studio’s overall enterprise value and equips the team to solve unforeseen problems in‑house.
When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in modern game development—Dietsch gave a clear answer: the studio does not employ AI for creative work. “We believe a human touch is essential to game making. Hand‑crafting experiences is why we get up in the morning,” he said.
Wendschuh added that the only AI tools they use are mundane productivity aids like calendar scheduling and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton, which has publicly positioned itself as an “AI‑first” company, specifically required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline as a condition of their investment. This mirrors a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio, which publicly denied using AI for core game development. The studio’s commitment to hand‑crafted content extends to the game’s massive six‑kilometre‑square map and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors.
Dietsch argues that this level of artisanal effort is vital, even for a modestly sized indie title, because it preserves the authenticity and emotional resonance that AI‑generated assets often lack. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and game creation. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and extensive pre‑production before a director ever sees footage.
By contrast, a game developer can prototype an idea in a single morning, drop it into the engine, and instantly iterate. This immediacy fuels his passion for interactive media.
Wendschuh notes that while film production is heavily front‑loaded—requiring high‑profile talent to secure financing—games have a lower barrier to entry. Anyone can rent a camera and shoot a backyard movie, but without star power or distribution, the odds of success are slim. Games, however, have fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without needing A‑list actors or directors.
Both founders agree that the core creative impulse remains the same across mediums: storytelling, engagement, and delivering an experience. Dietsch recalls that as a six‑year‑old he wanted to make either movies or games, and a simple coin toss decided his path. He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, blending his love of technology with narrative. Whether through film or interactive play, he believes the ultimate goal is to move people, a principle that continues to drive Wolf Haus as they bring Join Us to life.