The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, giving viewers a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulation. In the clip, robed followers charge on pig‑mounted platforms, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with a nightmarish vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from an off‑hand suggestion by a team member’s child. "His son asked, ‘What would a snake gun look like?’ We had a modular weapon system that let us prototype quickly, so within about thirty minutes I built a gun that actually fires snakes.
The kid went nuts, and the weapon stuck around in the final build," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us – an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers or invite friends into a 1970s‑style cult and then watch the madness unfold. The game’s design philosophy mirrors the studio’s broader approach: a technology‑first mindset that lets a tiny team produce a high‑fidelity experience traditionally reserved for studios with dozens or hundreds of developers. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed it up succinctly: “We set out to be disruptors.
Everyone told us it was impossible to build a AAA‑scale title with just a dozen people, but we knew from our indie‑film backgrounds that we could punch far above our weight.” Indeed, the Wolf Haus crew had already proven they could achieve big results on shoestring budgets. After an exhaustive 80‑pitch marathon, they finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the studio.
The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of actor‑director Mel Gibson—and the two later 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 company founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to the Star Citizen universe. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. “I discovered Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a huge barrier to actually creating something,” he explains.
Starting with YouTube tutorials, he built a few modest prototypes before deciding to tackle something far more ambitious: a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the concept quickly gained momentum. The studio’s financial chief, Dooma Wendschuh, brings a hybrid background of film production, narrative design, and tech entrepreneurship.
After writing for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins through his company Sekretagent Productions, he founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which later sold for roughly C$430 million. A brief retirement on a remote Canadian island was interrupted when his former Hollywood‑hillroommate, Michael Abbott, called about a video‑game project.
Wendschuh was instantly drawn back, impressed by the demo’s originality. To strengthen the studio’s leadership, Wolf Haus recruited Reid Schneider—formerly a vice‑president at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the makers of Journey to the Savage Planet—as a strategic advisor. Schneider also brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a seasoned Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With this core team in place, the next hurdle was funding, a daunting task given the industry’s downturn in mid‑2023. After initial outreach, the studio signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, re‑pitched throughout 2024, and eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Abbott credits the CAA connection—also representing titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of veteran industry figures for opening doors that might otherwise have remained closed.
"Derek Douglas, our CAA agent, had represented me for over a decade and previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris," notes Wendschuh. Despite the heavyweight advisory board, the studio remains remarkably lean: only thirteen full‑time staff members.
Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional, fostering a collaborative environment where every voice matters and each contributor can touch both creative and technical aspects of the project. To make such an expansive game feasible with a limited headcount, Wolf Haus invested heavily in bespoke development tools from day one. "Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch says. "We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and engineering the toolchain that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight." The funding structure further supports this tool‑centric approach.
Krafton and Lifelike’s equity stakes have allowed the studio to self‑finance the core development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. "Our investors are motivated to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they encourage us to build robust tools," Wendschuh explains. "When we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we simply create a tool to address it. It may slow short‑term progress, but it enables us to deliver a complex, open‑world experience with a tiny team." In an industry where generative AI is often touted as a shortcut for small studios, Wolf Haus deliberately steers clear of it for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential to game development," Dietsch asserts. "Using AI to generate core content would defeat the reason we get up every morning—to craft something ourselves." Wendschuh adds that the studio only uses AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, never for art, design, or narrative. Interestingly, Krafton—publicly positioning itself as an "AI‑first" company—insisted that Wolf Haus not employ generative AI in the creative pipeline, reinforcing the studio’s commitment to handcrafted experiences. This stance mirrors that of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly rejected AI‑driven development.
The result is a game built entirely by human hands: a six‑kilometre‑square map painstakingly hand‑crafted, and roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by professional actors. Dietsch stresses that preserving this level of human involvement was non‑negotiable, even for an indie‑scale project.
Transitioning from film to games has given Dietsch a sense of immediacy he never enjoyed in cinema. In film, a concept can take years to materialise, subject to countless approvals and scheduling constraints. In game development, an idea can be prototyped within hours, allowing instant visual feedback. "You can think of an idea this morning, drop it into the engine, and see it in action by lunch," he says, highlighting the exhilarating rapid iteration that games afford.
Wendschuh notes that while film production is heavily front‑loaded—requiring star power, studio green‑lights, and extensive pre‑production—game development faces fewer gatekeepers. "Anyone can rent a camera and shoot a backyard movie, but without big names or distribution, it’s unlikely to break through. In games, the barriers are lower; you don’t need an A‑list actor or director to succeed," he observes.
Both mediums, however, share a core creative drive: storytelling and immersive experience. Dietsch reflects on his childhood, recalling a coin toss that determined whether he’d pursue games or movies. He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, and whether he’s crafting a film or a game, his goal remains the same—to give audiences an engaging story and a memorable experience.
In summary, Wolf Haus’s Join Us stands out not only for its quirky cult‑themed gameplay but also for the unconventional path its creators have taken: leveraging Hollywood connections, cannabis‑industry wealth, and a self‑built tech stack to produce a high‑quality title with a team the size of a small indie studio, all while consciously rejecting the shortcut of generative AI in favor of pure human creativity.