The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a barrage of firearms, and conclude with a looming image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One of the most memorable, yet unseen, elements was the snake‑shooter weapon, a quirky addition that arose from a simple suggestion by a team member’s child. Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recounted the moment: “The kid asked if we could make a snake gun. Because we had a modular gun‑creation tool, I was able to prototype a snake‑shooting weapon in roughly half an hour.
The kid was thrilled, and the weapon stayed in the final build.” That anecdote perfectly captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us. The game is an open‑world sandbox survival experience set in a 1970s‑style cult, where players can recruit both AI followers and real‑world co‑op partners to expand their eerie congregation. The development philosophy behind the title is equally unconventional.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up the team’s ambition: “We wanted to be disruptors. While everyone assumed you needed a hundred‑person studio to deliver a high‑fidelity, large‑scale game, we believed twelve could do it.” The founders’ backgrounds helped them embrace that belief.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University in California alongside Louie Gibson—son of actor Mel Gibson—and the two later co‑wrote and co‑directed indie features such as Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott hails from a lineage of Hollywood makeup artistry; his father, Larry Abbott, is a renowned makeup artist, and Michael helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before his shift to Star Citizen. He later produced movies like Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
This blend of indie‑film hustle and Hollywood connections gave the team a knack for punching far above their weight. Funding the project was a marathon of pitches—about eighty in total—before Wolf Haus secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital.
Both investors took a stake in the studio, allowing the team to remain self‑funded for development while later using a modest amount of project finance for marketing. The partnership with Krafton is particularly notable because, despite Krafton’s public branding as an “AI‑first” company, it explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline.
This stance aligned with the studio’s own philosophy of preserving a human‑centric creative process. The story of how Join Us came to life began with Dietsch experimenting in Unreal Engine. “Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a huge barrier to actually building something,” he explained. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, creating several small prototypes before deciding to tackle a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that merged his love for survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
The initial proof‑of‑concept was a rough, ambitious sandbox that he showed to Abbott, who then introduced it to Dooma, the company that would later become Wolf Haus. Key personnel joined the venture through a network of film and game veterans. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously produced and written for films 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. He also founded several tech enterprises, most lucratively selling a cannabis formulation company, Ebbu, for roughly C$430 million.
After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a phone call from his old Hollywood roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into development. Wendschuh then recruited Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games VP, as a strategic advisor, and Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With the core team in place—thirteen full‑time staff members—the studio focused heavily on building internal tools.
Dietsch emphasized that any system in the game needed to be scalable and debuggable by a single developer, ensuring that as features expanded across the open world, the project wouldn’t collapse under its own complexity. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay concepts and constructing the toolset that would later enable rapid iteration. This tooling‑first approach allowed the small team to maintain a tight feedback loop: ideas could be prototyped, tested, and refined within hours rather than weeks.
The decision to eschew generative AI was both philosophical and practical. “We believe a game should retain a human touch,” said Dietsch. “Hand‑crafting the six‑kilometer‑square map and recording 15,000 voice lines with real actors was essential to preserving the atmosphere we wanted.” While the studio does use AI‑powered services for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, none of those tools influence the creative aspects of design, art, or narrative.
This stance resonated with Krafton, which insisted that its equity partners not rely on generative AI for core development, mirroring similar reservations expressed by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑backed studio. Beyond technology, the team’s Hollywood experience informs their production mindset. Dietsch notes that film development can be painfully slow: an idea may sit on paper for years before securing financing, casting, and a green light. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped the same day it is imagined, allowing for immediate iteration and rapid validation.
This immediacy fuels the studio’s enthusiasm, as developers can see their vision materialize in the engine within hours, rather than waiting for a lengthy pre‑production pipeline. Wendschuh adds that the film industry’s gatekeeping—relying on A‑list directors, actors, and studio approval—creates high barriers for independent creators. By comparison, the games industry offers fewer gatekeepers, making it easier for a small, talented team to produce a commercially viable product without marquee names attached. This democratization aligns with Wolf Haus’s ethos of giving every team member a voice and creative stake, fostering a collaborative environment where ideas flow freely.
In summary, Join Us is the product of a unique convergence: Hollywood heritage, savvy entrepreneurship in the cannabis sector, and a disciplined, tool‑centric development philosophy. By keeping the team lean, refusing to outsource creativity to generative AI, and leveraging deep industry connections, Wolf Haus has managed to build a high‑budget‑looking cult simulator with just a dozen developers. The result is a game that feels both expansive and intimately crafted, promising players an off‑beat, immersive experience that stands out in today’s crowded market.