The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, giving viewers a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers charge on pig‑back while firing machine guns, and the sequence culminates in a nightmarish vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What the audience didn’t see, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—was the infamous snake‑gun.
"One of the team members’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new weapon in about thirty minutes, so I built a gun that actually shoots snakes. The kid went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or teammates in co‑op mode—to a 1970s‑style cult and unleash absurd, over‑the‑top weaponry. The game’s wild tone is matched by the studio’s equally unconventional development philosophy.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, says the team set out to be "disruptors." "We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve people can do this.’ Most people laughed and said it was impossible," he explains. Their confidence stems from a background in low‑budget, high‑impact indie filmmaking, where they learned to "punch above their weight." After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the company.
The founding trio brings deep Hollywood credentials. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of actor‑director Mel Gibson—who co‑founded Wolf Haus and 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. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d been a gamer my whole life, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge.
I started watching YouTube tutorials and built a few tiny prototypes," he says. Although he had no formal training, Dietsch managed to finish a couple of small games before deciding to tackle something bigger: a doomsday cult simulator that merged his love of survival games with grindhouse cinema.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the concept quickly moved up the chain to Dooma, the studio that would later become a strategic partner. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, arrived from a career that straddles film and games.
He began as a producer and screenwriter in Hollywood, then founded Sekretagent Productions, which supplied narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. In the 2010s he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After that windfall he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire.
Yet a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into development when he saw the early Join Us demo and was "blown away." Wendschuh recruited Reid Schneider—a former vice‑president at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet—as a strategic advisor, and Schneider brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a veteran programmer from Ubisoft Montreal, to serve as chief technology officer. With the core leadership in place, the next hurdle was financing, which proved difficult during the industry downturn of 2023‑24. The team pitched relentlessly, eventually signing with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and returning to investors in 2024.
Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed a seed round, providing the capital needed to keep development on track. The partnership with CAA—who also represent titles such as 007: First Light—proved valuable, as did the involvement of seasoned game veterans like Schneider and Chartrand. "My agent at CAA, Derek Douglas, was also my agent when I made games for twelve years and he previously ran the video‑game department at William Morris," Wendschuh notes, underscoring the importance of industry connections.
What truly sets Join Us apart is the scale of the project relative to the size of the team. Wolf Haus operates with just thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the studio deliberately kept the roster small so that "everyone has a voice, everyone touches the creative, and the game feels like it was made by a specific group of people." To make such an ambitious open‑world title feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains.
The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and building the internal toolset that would allow those ideas to scale across a six‑kilometre‑square map without collapsing under their own weight. Funding from Krafton and Lifelike has been structured as equity, meaning the studio can self‑finance the development while retaining creative control. "The investors are incentivized to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support us in building extensive tools," says Wendschuh.
"Whenever we hit a problem we don’t know how to solve, we simply build a tool for it. It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a tiny team to produce a high‑fidelity experience." In an industry where many studios tout generative‑AI pipelines, Wolf Haus has deliberately steered clear of AI for creative work. Dietsch states plainly, "We don’t use any generative AI in the game. We believe a human touch is essential; handing development over to an algorithm would defeat the purpose of why we love making games." Wendschuh adds that the studio does use AI‑powered services only for administrative tasks such as calendar management and email drafting.
"We have no AI involvement in any artistic or design decisions," he confirms. This stance aligns with Krafton’s own policy; despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, Krafton required that its portfolio studios, including Wolf Haus, refrain from using generative AI in the creative pipeline. Similar positions have been taken by other Krafton‑owned studios like Neon Giant. The team’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio.
The entire six‑kilometre‑square island is hand‑modeled, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. Dietsch believes this human‑centric approach is vital, even for an indie title.
Comparing film and games, Dietsch highlights the immediacy of interactive media. In film, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and massive budgets before a director sees it on set. In contrast, a game developer can prototype a concept in a single morning, drop it into the engine, and instantly iterate. Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, relying on securing a handful of high‑profile talent to greenlight a project, whereas games face fewer gatekeepers.
"You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game," he says, pointing out that the lower barrier to entry gives small teams a realistic chance at commercial success. Both founders trace their passion back to childhood.
Dietsch recalls wanting to make either movies or games at age six, a decision that hinged on whether he received a camera for Christmas. He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, blending his love of storytelling with technical curiosity. "Whether you’re making a movie or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience," he concludes, underscoring the shared creative impulse that drives both mediums.
Join Us is now poised to launch as a high‑budget‑looking cult simulator built by a dozen‑person studio that refuses to rely on generative AI, instead leaning on handcrafted design, bespoke tools, and a Hollywood‑infused work ethic. The result promises a wild, chaotic, and uniquely human gaming experience that reflects the eclectic backgrounds of its creators.