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, culminating in a shot of massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the cut was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that has become a hallmark of the game.
According to Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the idea came from a team member’s child. "His son asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’ We had a modular weapon system that let us prototype quickly, so within half an hour I built a gun that actually fires snakes. The kid was thrilled, and we kept it in the final build," Dietsch recalls.
This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or teammates—to build a 1970s‑style cult. The game’s development philosophy mirrors that spirit. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s COO, says the studio set out to be "disruptors" by proving that a high‑fidelity, content‑rich title could be produced by a tiny team.
"We told everyone we could do it with twelve people. Most people laughed and said it was impossible," Abbott explains.
Their confidence stems from a background in low‑budget indie filmmaking, where they learned to "punch above their weight." After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now hold stakes in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood roots run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who later co‑founded Wolf Haus and co‑wrote the indie films Happy Hunting and Manifest West.
Abbott is the son of veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company started by Chris Roberts before his transition to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies 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 there was a huge barrier to creating something myself," he says. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, built a few small prototypes, and eventually settled on the idea of a doomsday cult simulator—a mash‑up of survival mechanics and grindhouse cinema that merged his film and gaming passions into a single intellectual property.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo and showed it to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, the company that would later become Wolf Haus. 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.
Later, he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million. After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire. Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, a call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back. "I was ready for a quiet life, but Joe sent me a video of his prototype, and it blew my mind.
I came out of retirement to help," Wendschuh says. He introduced Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, as a strategic advisor, and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. Funding proved to be the next hurdle.
The studio began pitching in summer 2023, during a market downturn, and faced skepticism despite the game's obvious charm. After initial outreach, they enlisted CAA (Creative Artists Agency) as representation and returned to the pitch circuit in 2024. Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton led a seed round, providing the capital needed to continue development.
Wendschuh credits CAA’s connections—especially to veterans like Schneider and Chartrand—and the agency’s experience with high‑profile titles such as 007: First Light for the successful fundraising. Today, Wolf Haus operates with just 13 full‑time staff members. The team’s small size is intentional: "We wanted a studio where every voice matters and everyone can touch the creative process," says Dietsch. To make a large‑scale open world feasible with a lean crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on.
"Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and building the underlying tools that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight. The equity funding model gave the studio the runway to perfect those tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s investment is used directly to finance development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing.
"Our investors want the studio to increase its enterprise value, so they encourage us to build robust tools," Wendschuh notes. "When we encounter a problem we can’t solve, we build a tool to address it. It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a small team to deliver a game of this scope." When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not rely on it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Using AI to generate content would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," Dietsch says. Wendschuh adds that the only AI they employ is for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Interestingly, Krafton, which has branded itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline. This mirrors a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio, which publicly denied using AI for game creation. The studio’s commitment to hand‑crafted content extends to the game’s massive map and voice work.
The six‑kilometre‑square world of Join Us was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. "Even as a tiny indie, we felt it was crucial to preserve that human element," Dietsch emphasizes. Dietsch also highlights a key advantage of games over film: immediacy.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring scripts, casting, financing, and studio approval before a single frame is shot. 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 film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense pre‑production phases to secure high‑profile talent and studio green‑lights.
While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. Games, however, have far fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without needing A‑list actors or directors.
Both founders agree that storytelling is the common thread linking the two mediums. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It boiled down to a coin toss and whether I got a camera for Christmas," Dietsch recalls. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, a skill that later informed his game design.
"Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. The core intent doesn’t change," he concludes. Join Us thus stands as a testament to what a small, determined team with Hollywood lineage, savvy tech development, and a clear philosophical stance on AI can achieve. By combining handcrafted world‑building, a quirky sense of humor, and a commitment to human‑driven creativity, Wolf Haus is poised to deliver a cult‑simulator that feels both massive in scope and intimate in execution.