The buzz around Join Us first erupted when its trailer lit up the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. The footage showed robed disciples riding on pigs, firing machine guns, and culminating in a nightmarish vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t appear in the teaser was the now‑infamous snake gun—a weapon that emerged from a simple, off‑hand suggestion from a team member’s child. Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recalls the moment: “A kid asked if we could make a snake‑shooting gun.
We had a rapid‑prototyping tool, so within half an hour I built it. The kid went wild, and the gun stayed in the final build.” That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their philosophy: “We wanted to be disruptors.
We told everyone we could build this with twelve people, and they all said it was impossible.” The team’s confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where they learned to punch far above their budgetary weight. After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving the studio the financial runway to continue development. Wolf Haus’s leadership is steeped in Hollywood lineage.
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 renowned makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to Star Citizen.
Abbott’s film résumé includes producing the Jamie Foxx‑led thriller Fight for ’84. The genesis of Join Us traces back to Dietsch’s early experiments with Unreal Engine. “I discovered Unreal was free to download, and that removed a huge barrier,” he explains. “I started learning from YouTube tutorials and built a few tiny games before deciding to aim bigger.” The concept that stuck was a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—a love letter to the gritty, over‑the‑top movies that shaped his taste.
He built a proof‑of‑concept prototype, expecting to hit a technical wall at some point. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and introduced it to Dooma, the studio that would later become a strategic partner.
Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, came from a film‑writing background, having written for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins through his company Sekretagent Productions. In the 2010s he founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis‑formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million.
Wendschuh retired to a remote Canadian island, only to be pulled back into the industry when his old Hollywood‑hill roommate Michael Abbott called about a video‑game project. After seeing the demo, Wendschuh was convinced and brought in Reid Schneider—former Warner Bros. Games VP and current head of Raccoon Logic—to act as strategic advisor. Schneider recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a veteran programmer from Ubisoft Montreal, as chief technology officer.
Funding proved challenging amid a market downturn in 2023. The team pitched repeatedly, eventually enlisting CAA (Creative Artists Agency) as representation.
Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed a seed round in 2024, providing the capital needed to finish the game. What truly sets Join Us apart is its development model.
With only 13 full‑time staff, Wolf Haus emphasized a collaborative culture where every voice mattered. Early in the project they invested heavily in internal tooling.
“If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” Dietsch notes. “We built a toolkit that let us expand features across a massive open world without the project collapsing.” This tooling focus consumed much of the first year, but it laid the groundwork for future titles. The equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed the studio to self‑finance the entire development, using the investors’ capital rather than external loans.
“Our investors want the studio to increase in enterprise value, so they support us in building extensive tools,” says Wendschuh. “It may slow development, but it lets a tiny team achieve something that would normally need dozens of engineers.” Contrary to the hype surrounding generative AI in game creation, Wolf Haus deliberately avoided it. “We don’t use generative AI for any creative work,” Dietsch affirms. “We believe a human touch is essential; handing development over to an AI would defeat the purpose of why we love making games.” Wendschuh adds that the only AI they employ helps with mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, not with art, design, or narrative.
Krafton, despite branding itself as an “AI‑first” company, also insisted that Wolf Haus refrain from using generative AI in the creative pipeline. This stance mirrors that of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly rejected the AI pivot.
The commitment to handcrafted content is evident in the game’s six‑kilometre‑square map, which was manually built, and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors. “Even as a tiny indie, we felt it was crucial to keep the human element,” Dietsch says.
Dietsch finds the immediacy of game development liberating compared to film. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring studio approvals and star power.
In games, a concept can be prototyped in a morning, placed into the engine, and instantly tested. Wendschuh observes that film production is front‑loaded with high‑stakes negotiations for A‑list talent, whereas games have far fewer gatekeepers, allowing smaller teams to succeed without celebrity endorsements. Both mediums, however, share a core creative drive: storytelling and immersion.
Dietsch reflects, “When I was six I wanted to make movies or games; it boiled down to a coin toss and a camera for Christmas. I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been fascinated by both. Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience—that never changes."