The trailer for Join Us first caught many eyes when it was showcased during the Xbox event in June. The glimpse revealed a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator where robed followers zip around on pig‑mounted platforms, wielding machine guns before the screen fades to a nightmarish vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the public cut, however, was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that originated from a spontaneous idea by a team member’s child. Joe Dietsch, the chief executive officer and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recounts the moment: “A kid on the team asked if we could make a gun that shoots snakes.
Because we had built a flexible weapon‑creation tool, I was able to prototype a snake‑shooting gun in roughly thirty minutes. The kid was thrilled, and the weapon stayed in the final build.” This anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival experience that lets players recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to their 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates why Wolf Haus leans heavily on in‑house technology to achieve high‑fidelity results with a remarkably small staff.
Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, sums up the team’s philosophy: “We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could deliver a AAA‑level game with just twelve developers. Most people thought we were dreaming.” Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where small crews routinely punch far above their budgetary weight. The Wolf Haus founders spent countless hours pitching their vision—eighty pitches in total—before finally attracting equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now hold stakes in the company.
The founding trio’s Hollywood credentials run 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, a production house started by Chris Roberts before his shift to the Star Citizen universe. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
These cinematic roots inform the studio’s narrative‑driven design ethos. Join Us was born when Dietsch began experimenting with Unreal Engine, attracted by the fact that the engine could be downloaded for free. “I’d always loved games, but the barrier to actually building one felt huge. I started watching YouTube tutorials and tinkering with Unreal,” he explains.
Despite having no prior development experience, Dietsch managed to assemble a few modest prototypes before committing to a larger ambition: a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse‑style cinema. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the duo presented it to Dooma, a partner that helped refine the concept. The studio’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, entered the gaming world after a career in film production and screenwriting.
He founded Sekretagent Productions, which supplied narrative services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he launched several tech ventures, most notably Ebbu, a cannabis‑formulation company that sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back: “Joe showed me a prototype that completely blew my mind, and I decided to come out of retirement.” Wendschuh then recruited Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros.
Games and now head of Raccoon Logic (the creators of Journey to the Savage Planet), as a strategic advisor. Schneider brought on Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With this core in place, the studio turned its attention to financing—a daunting task given the industry downturn of 2023‑24. After initial outreach, they enlisted the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for representation, re‑pitched in 2024, and secured seed funding from Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
The partnership with CAA proved valuable; the agency also represents titles such as 007: First Light, and its network of veteran game executives lent credibility to Wolf Haus’s pitch. Derek Douglas, Wolf Haus’s agent at CAA, had previously represented Wendschuh during his twelve‑year stint making games, and had headed the video‑game department at William Morris, further smoothing the path to investment.
What truly sets Join Us apart is the scale of its ambition relative to the size of its team—thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that every employee is expected to wear multiple hats, ensuring that “everyone has a voice, everyone touches the creative, and the final product feels like the work of a tight‑knit group.” To make such a sprawling open‑world possible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch notes.
The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and building the internal tools that would later allow the world to expand without collapsing under its own weight. Funding from Krafton and Lifelike was structured as equity, meaning the studio could self‑finance development while retaining creative control. "The investors want the studio to increase its enterprise value, so they encourage us to build robust tools," says Wendschuh.
This approach sometimes slows immediate progress but ultimately enables a small team to produce a game of AAA scope. When asked about the role of generative AI—a hot topic in the industry—both Dietsch and Wendschuh were unequivocal: the studio does not employ AI for creative tasks. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Using AI to generate assets would undermine why we get up each morning," Dietsch says. Wendschuh adds that the only AI tools they use are for mundane administrative functions like calendar management and email drafting.
Interestingly, Krafton, which has publicly branded itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑backed studio. The team’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s massive six‑kilometer‑square map, which was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors. "We wanted to prove that a tiny indie studio could still deliver fully human‑performed audio," Dietsch explains, underscoring the studio’s resistance to shortcuts that could displace artists. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and game production.
In film, a concept can take years to materialize, requiring endless approvals and the alignment of high‑profile talent. In contrast, a game idea can be prototyped within hours, allowing creators to instantly see their vision in action. "You can have an idea at breakfast and test it in the engine by lunch," he says, highlighting the immediacy that fuels his enthusiasm for interactive media.
Wendschuh points out that while filmmaking is heavily front‑loaded—requiring massive coordination before a single frame is shot—game development distributes effort more evenly over time. This distribution, combined with the relative lack of gatekeepers in the gaming world, makes it far more feasible for a small, unknown studio to achieve commercial success without star power.
Both founders agree that the core impulse behind movies and games is the same: to craft an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience. Dietsch recalls his childhood fascination with both mediums, noting that a simple Christmas camera or a TI‑83 calculator sparked a lifelong passion for creation.
Whether through a lens or a game engine, the goal remains to transport people into another world. In summary, Wolf Haus’s Join Us represents a bold experiment in scaling high‑quality, narrative‑driven gameplay with a minuscule team, leveraging deep Hollywood experience, strategic financing, and a steadfast refusal to rely on generative AI. The result is a richly detailed cult simulator that promises both chaotic fun and a testament to what a determined, technically savvy indie studio can achieve.