The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator. In the preview, robed followers zip around on pig‑mounted platforms, firing machine guns before the screen cuts to a massive, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles.
One element that 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 inspired by a child’s off‑hand suggestion. "My team member’s son asked, ‘What if there’s a gun that shoots snakes?’" Dietsch recalls.
"Because we had built a flexible weapon system, I was able to prototype a snake‑shooting gun in roughly thirty minutes. The kid went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the game." This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, 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 highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a tiny crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their philosophy: "We wanted to be disruptors.
We told everyone we could build a AAA‑level experience with just twelve people, and most people thought we were crazy." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where doing more with less is the norm. "We’ve spent years punching way above our weight on shoestring budgets," Abbott says. After 80 pitches, the team finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took a stake in Wolf Haus.
The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of 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 he moved on to Star Citizen.
Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt blocked from actually creating anything," he explains. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few small prototypes, and eventually settled on the idea of a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the pair began to flesh out the concept. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, brings a unique blend of film and tech experience. He began as a producer and screenwriter before founding Sekretagent Productions, which supplied narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
Later he sold a cannabis‑formulation company, Ebbu, 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 game development.
Wendschuh was impressed by Dietsch’s demo and helped recruit industry veterans such as Reid Schneider—former VP at Warner Bros Games—and Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as strategic advisor and CTO respectively. Funding proved challenging during a market downturn.
The team began pitching in summer 2023, initially struggling to attract interest. After partnering with CAA in Los Angeles and refining their pitch, they secured seed investment from Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection and the presence of seasoned advisors for opening doors that would otherwise have remained closed.
Despite the high ambitions, Join Us is being built by just 13 full‑time staff. 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 of the final product." To make such a scope feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on. "Every system must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," he says. The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and constructing the internal tools that would keep the open‑world map from collapsing under its own weight.
The equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance the bulk of development, only turning to external project finance for marketing later on. This arrangement aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term vision: building reusable tools that can serve future projects, even if it slows immediate progress. When asked about generative AI, Dietsch is unequivocal: "We don’t use any generative AI in the creative process. We believe a human touch is essential for game development." Wendschuh adds that the studio only employs AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid AI‑generated content, mirroring a similar stance taken by 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 is entirely hand‑built, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. This decision reflects a broader philosophy that values artistic labor over automation, especially given concerns about AI displacing voice talent and artists.
Dietsch notes that the immediacy of game development is a major draw compared with film. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals and a massive cast and crew. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and instantly visualised.
Wendschuh observes that filmmaking is heavily front‑loaded: securing a few high‑profile names can be the difference between a green‑lit project and a dead‑end script. While anyone can shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. Games, however, have far fewer gatekeepers; a small indie team can reach a global audience without needing A‑list talent.
Both Dietsch and Wendschuh agree that storytelling is at the heart of both mediums. "Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re trying to give someone an experience, tell a story, and engage them," Dietsch reflects. His childhood love of both programming on a TI‑83 calculator and capturing images with a camera set him on a path where the line between cinema and interactive entertainment is increasingly blurred.