The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation. In the clip, robed cultists zip around on pigs, wielding machine guns, before the screen fades to a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles.
One element that didn’t make the final edit was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the chief executive officer and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a child’s imagination. "My team member’s son asked, ‘What would a snake‑firing gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new weapon in about thirty minutes, so I built it on the fly. The kid went nuts, and the snake gun stuck around in the final build," Dietsch recalls.
That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title where players can recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. The same story also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a high‑fidelity experience to be produced by a surprisingly small crew. Michael Abbott, the chief operating officer, sums up the team’s philosophy: "We set out to be disruptors. Everyone told us you needed a hundred‑person studio to pull off something like this, but we believed twelve could do the job." Their confidence stems from a background in independent filmmaking, where small budgets often force creators to stretch resources.
"We’re used to punching far above our weight," Abbott says. After 80 pitch meetings, Wolf Haus finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now hold stakes in the company. The founding trio brings deep Hollywood connections to the table. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, the son of actor‑director Mel Gibson, and the two 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 house founded by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention 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.
"I discovered the engine was free to download, and I’d been a gamer my whole life, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge. I started learning from YouTube tutorials and tinkering," he explains.
Despite having no formal game‑development training, Dietsch managed to ship a few modest titles before deciding to aim higher. "I kept circling back to the idea of a doomsday cult simulator because it merged my love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema, creating a single IP that bridges film and games," he says.
He built a proof‑of‑concept prototype, assuming it would soon hit a technical wall. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter took it to Dooma, a partner that helped refine the vision. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously worked as a producer and screenwriter in Hollywood before transitioning to games in the early 2000s, contributing writing to titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he founded several tech ventures, including a cannabis‑formulation company that sold for roughly C$430 million.
After selling his cannabis business, 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.
"A friend had made a video game and sent me a demo. It blew my mind and got me out of retirement," Wendschuh recounts.
He introduced the project to Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games vice‑president now heading Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet. Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer.
With the core team in place, the next hurdle was financing, a daunting task given the industry’s downturn in the summer of 2023. "People liked what we were building, but the market was tough," says Dietsch.
The studio enlisted the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to help with pitching, eventually closing a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—whose roster includes titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of veteran game developers for opening doors. "My agent Derek Douglas had represented me for twelve years and previously ran the video‑game department at William Morris," Wendschuh notes.
Despite the pedigree, Join Us is being crafted by just thirteen full‑time staff members. The studio deliberately kept the team lean to preserve a collaborative atmosphere where every voice matters. "We wanted everyone to touch the creative process and feel ownership of the game," Dietsch says. To achieve such ambition with a small crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in internal tooling from the outset.
"Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," explains Dietsch. The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and building the underlying tools, a strategy that also prepares the studio for future projects. The equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance the development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing.
"Our investors are aligned with us to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they encourage us to build extensive tools," says Wendschuh. This philosophy means that whenever a technical obstacle appears, the team simply creates a bespoke tool to solve it, even if it slows short‑term progress.
When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—Dietsch is unequivocal: the studio does not use it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Handing development over to an AI would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," he says. Wendschuh adds that the only AI they employ is for mundane tasks like calendar management and email replies. Interestingly, Krafton, which has branded itself as an “AI‑first” company, specifically required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, 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 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 keep that human element," says Dietsch. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and games. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and massive budgets before a director sees it on set. By contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning and instantly visualised in the engine.
"That immediacy is exhilarating," he says. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense set‑time and the need to secure high‑profile talent to green‑light a project. While anyone can shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. In gaming, the gatekeepers are fewer, making it easier for small teams to achieve success without celebrity involvement.
Both Dietsch and Wendschuh agree that the core creative drive—telling stories and delivering experiences—remains the same across mediums. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games; it boiled down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera," Dietsch muses.
He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, blending technical curiosity with artistic ambition. Whether through film or interactive media, the goal is to engage an audience, spark imagination, and share a narrative—an objective that continues to guide Wolf Haus as they bring Join Us to life.