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 followers charge on pig‑mounted platforms, wielding machine guns, before the scene shifts to an ominous image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the public cut was the "snake gun," a quirky weapon that arose from an off‑hand suggestion.
Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recounts how a team member’s son asked, “What if there’s a snake gun?” With a rapid‑prototyping tool at hand, Dietsch whipped up a functional snake‑shooting weapon in roughly thirty minutes, delighting the kid and cementing the weapon’s place in the final product. That anecdote captures the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay Join Us promises: an open‑world survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op—to build a 1970s‑styled cult.
It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title to emerge from a surprisingly small crew. 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 laughed.” Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where small budgets often require outsized creativity. After 80 pitches, the team finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving Wolf Haus the financial runway to proceed. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of actor‑director Mel Gibson; 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 shift to the Star Citizen universe. Abbott’s film résumé includes producing the Jamie Foxx‑starring Fight for ’84. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
“I discovered Unreal was free to download and started learning from YouTube tutorials,” he explains. Though he had never built a game before, he managed a few small prototypes before committing to a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, hit a technical wall, and showed the prototype to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, a partner studio. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games in the early 2000s.
He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative services 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 selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. However, a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry.
Impressed by Dietsch’s demo, Wendschuh revived his involvement, bringing in Reid Schneider—formerly a vice president at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic—to serve as strategic advisor, and recruiting Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. Securing funding proved challenging amid a market downturn in 2023.
The team pitched relentlessly, eventually signing with CAA in Los Angeles and, after another round of presentations in 2024, closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for smoothing the path. “Derek Douglas, our agent at CAA, had represented me during my twelve‑year game‑making career and previously led the video‑game department at William Morris,” Wendschuh notes.
Despite the high ambitions, Join Us is being built by only thirteen full‑time staff. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model is intentional: “We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership of the game.” To make such a scope feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tools early on. “Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” Dietsch says.
The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and constructing the tooling infrastructure that would keep the open‑world map from collapsing under its own weight. The equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance the entire development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. This model aligns with the investors’ desire to increase the studio’s enterprise value, encouraging the team to keep building tools whenever they encounter an unsolvable problem.
While this approach can slow down immediate progress, it ensures that a tiny team can deliver a game of this magnitude. When asked about generative AI, Dietsch gives a clear answer: the studio does not rely on it for creative work. “We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate assets would defeat the purpose of why we love making games.” Wendschuh adds that they use AI only for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting, not for any artistic or design decisions.
Interestingly, Krafton—positioning itself as an “AI‑first” company—specifically required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring similar stances taken by other Krafton‑owned studios. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometer‑square map was entirely built by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, a point both Dietsch and Wendschuh stress as vital to preserving artistic integrity.
Dietsch reflects on the contrast between film and game development. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and studio greenlights before any footage is shot.
In games, an idea can be prototyped in a morning, placed into the engine, and instantly visualized. This immediacy excites him, offering a direct feedback loop that film lacks. Wendschuh notes that while film production is front‑loaded with high‑stakes negotiations for star talent, games have far fewer gatekeepers; a small indie can succeed without A‑list actors or directors. Both mediums, however, share a core creative drive: delivering experiences, telling stories, and engaging audiences.
Dietsch’s childhood ambition—to make either movies or games—ultimately led him down the path he follows today, blending his love of programming (learned on a TI‑83 calculator) with his cinematic sensibilities to craft a unique, cult‑themed adventure that promises both chaos and craftsmanship.