The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers charge on pig‑back while firing machine guns, and the sequence culminates with a terrifying vision of Cthulhu‑like tentacles looming over the scene. What didn’t make the cut, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—was the infamous snake gun. "One of the developers’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooter look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new weapon in about thirty minutes, so I built a gun that launches snakes on the fly.
The kid went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style doomsday cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title to be produced by a remarkably small team. "We set out to be disruptors," says Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer.
"We told everyone we could build a AAA‑level experience with just twelve people. Most people laughed, but we proved them wrong." The team’s confidence stems from a background in low‑budget, high‑impact indie filmmaking. "We’re used to punching well above our weight," Abbott notes. After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took a stake in the studio.
The founders’ Hollywood credentials run 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 experimentation in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d been a gamer my whole life, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge," he explains. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually gravitated toward a doomsday cult simulator—a concept that merged his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He developed an early proof of concept, assuming he would soon hit a technical wall.
When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter immediately brought it to Dooma, a partner that helped shape the project’s direction. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to 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. Later, he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into game development. Wendschuh was impressed by the early demo and helped secure strategic advice from Reid Schneider, former Warner Bros. Games VP and now head of Raccoon Logic (the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet).
Schneider recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as Wolf Haus’s 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 signing with CAA in Los Angeles and refining their pitch, they secured a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024.
Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—alongside veteran advisors like Schneider and Chartrand—and the credibility of agents such as Derek Douglas for opening doors. Despite the high ambitions, Join Us is being built by just 13 full‑time staff members. "We entered the project with a clear sense of scope and wanted to keep a tight‑knit culture where everyone’s voice matters," says Dietsch. To make a sprawling open‑world feasible for such a small crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on.
"Every system must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. "We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and building the internal tools that would let us expand without the project collapsing under its own weight." The equity partnership with Kraftor and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑fund development, using the investors’ capital to cover production costs while reserving a modest amount of project finance for marketing. "Our investors benefit from the studio’s enterprise value, so they encourage us to build robust tools," Wendschuh notes. "When we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we simply create a tool to fix it.
It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a tiny team to deliver a game of this scale." When asked about generative AI, Dietsch is unequivocal: the studio does not employ it in creative development. "We believe a human touch is essential. Handing the creative process over to an AI would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," he says. Wendschuh adds that while they may use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management, no generative tools touch the game's design, art, or narrative.
Krafton, which has branded itself as an "AI‑first" company, actually discouraged Wolf Haus from using generative AI in the creative pipeline, preferring to back a studio that relies on human craftsmanship. This stance mirrors that of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly denied using generative AI. The commitment to hand‑crafted content is evident throughout Join Us.
The six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely built by artists, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by professional actors—no synthetic voices. Dietsch stresses that even as an indie title, preserving that level of human detail was non‑negotiable.
Dietsch also highlights a key advantage of games over film: immediacy. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring extensive pre‑production, casting, and studio approval.
In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, inserted into the engine, and instantly visualised. "That instant feedback loop is exhilarating," he says. Wendschuh points out that filmmaking is heavily front‑loaded, with massive resources poured into securing A‑list talent and studio greenlights before any shooting begins. While anyone can technically shoot a low‑budget movie, breaking through without marquee names or distribution is rare.
By comparison, the barriers to entry for games are lower; you don’t need a famous director or star to attract an audience. This democratisation, combined with the founders’ hybrid background in film and tech, has allowed Wolf Haus to pursue an ambitious vision with a lean crew.
Both Dietsch and Wendschuh agree that the core creative drive—telling stories and delivering experiences—remains the same whether you’re making movies or games. "When I was six, I wanted to create either films or games, and it boiled down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera," Dietsch reflects. "Programming on a TI‑83 taught me the basics, and whether it’s a film or a game, the goal is to engage an audience and share a narrative. The medium changes, but the passion stays the same."