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 cultists zip around on pig‑mounted platforms, unleash a hail of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with an ominous image of massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles looming in the distance. One detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that has become a favorite anecdote for Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the studio behind the title. According to Dietsch, the idea for the snake gun originated from a casual conversation with his team member’s son.
“He asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooter look like?’ We had built a modular gun system that lets us prototype weapons in a matter of minutes. Within half an hour I had a functional snake‑firing weapon, and the kid was blown away. It stuck around in the game and has become a little legend among our fans.” This story captures the kind of chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or invite friends into co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire, complete with bizarre weapons, surreal rituals, and a sprawling, hand‑crafted map. The development philosophy behind Join Us is equally unconventional.
Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed it up succinctly: “We set out to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑quality experience with just twelve people.
Most people laughed and said it was impossible.” Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where small crews routinely punch far above their budgetary weight. The Wolf Haus team had already survived eighty pitch meetings before finally securing equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now hold stakes in the company. Wolf Haus’s founders are steeped in Hollywood history. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, the son of famed actor Mel Gibson, and the two later co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie features Happy Hunting and Manifest West.
Abbott, meanwhile, is the son of renowned makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention to Star Citizen. Abbott’s résumé also includes a producing credit on the Jamie Foxx‑led action drama Fight for ’84. The seed of Join Us was planted when Dietsch began tinkering with Unreal Engine purely out of curiosity.
“Unreal was free to download, and I’d spent my whole life watching movies and playing games. The biggest barrier felt like needing a massive studio to actually create something,” he explained. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, eventually building a few modest prototypes.
The concept that kept resurfacing was a doomsday cult simulator that merged survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—a hybrid that could serve as a single intellectual property for both games and potential film adaptations. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, expecting to hit a technical wall at some point.
When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter immediately recognized its potential and presented it to Dooma, a development partner. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had a unique career trajectory: after years as a film producer and screenwriter, he transitioned to games in the early 2000s, founding Sekretagent Productions, which supplied narrative work for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
Later, 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, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the industry.
“I watched the demo and it completely blew my mind. It convinced me to step out of retirement and join the project,” he recalled.
Wendschuh then recruited Reid Schneider—formerly a vice‑president at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet—as a strategic advisor. Schneider, in turn, brought on Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a veteran programmer from Ubisoft Montreal, to serve as Wolf Haus’s chief technology officer. With this core team in place, the studio turned its attention to financing.
Pitching began in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. Despite the challenging climate, the team’s perseverance paid off when they signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Abbott credits CAA’s representation—alongside the involvement of seasoned game veterans like Schneider and Chartrand—for opening doors that would have otherwise remained shut. “Our agent Derek Douglas had represented me for twelve years and previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris.
That kind of pedigree matters when you’re trying to convince investors that a twelve‑person team can deliver a massive open‑world experience.” The result is a game built by just thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model was a deliberate choice: “We wanted every voice to be heard, every person 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 internal tooling from day one.
“If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single developer,” Dietsch explained. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay features and constructing the robust toolset needed to keep the project from collapsing under its own weight as the world expanded.
Funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance the entire development cycle, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. “Our investors have equity stakes, so they benefit when the studio’s value grows. That alignment encourages us to build reusable tools, even if it slows short‑term progress, because it pays off in the long run,” Wendschuh said.
When asked about the role of generative AI—a hot topic in the industry—Dietsch was unequivocal: the studio does not employ AI for creative tasks. “We believe a game should retain a human touch. Using an AI to generate assets would defeat the purpose of why we love making games.” Wendschuh added that the only AI tools they use are mundane productivity assistants for scheduling and email. Interestingly, Krafton, which has branded itself as an “AI‑first” company, explicitly required that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant.
The team’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s massive six‑kilometre‑square map and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors. “We wanted a fully human‑driven experience, even as a small indie studio,” Dietsch noted. This philosophy reflects a broader concern about AI displacing creative professionals such as voice talent and artists.
Dietsch also contrasts the immediacy of game development with the protracted timelines of filmmaking. In cinema, an idea may sit on a script for years before it ever sees a set, and even then it requires securing high‑profile talent and studio backing. By contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours, tested in the engine, and iterated upon the same day. Wendschuh agrees, observing that film production is heavily front‑loaded with pre‑production hurdles, whereas games have fewer gatekeepers: “You don’t need an A‑list star or director to get a game off the ground; you just need a functional prototype and a passionate team.” Both men reflect on how their childhood fascination with both mediums shaped their careers.
“When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It came down to a coin toss and whether I got a camera for Christmas,” Dietsch recalled.
“I learned to program on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been straddling both worlds. Ultimately, whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re telling a story, creating an experience, and engaging an audience—that core drive never changes."