- Gamescom Roundup - 3 September 2026
Gamescom was a big one for the cult, aka JOIN US. The team had an incredible trip to Cologne, Germany. We met awesome people, revealed new content, and let players experience JOIN US for the very first time on the show floor. Friends Don’t Let Friends Join CultsWe appeared on the Future Games Show to premiere our new co-op trailer, “Friends Don’t Let Friends Join Cults.” We also announced that JOIN US will launch on PlayStation 5 alongside Xbox and PC on day one!JOIN US at the Xbox BoothWe had a great time at the Xbox booth, where we met with press from around the world and had the chance to chat about JOIN US and show off the game. We also went by a German thrift store and bought weird cult decorations for the room. The clown randomly rebooted computer monitors when it got near (not a joke) so we left it behind because, cursed. Thank you to everyone who stopped by! Our First Public Han…
- Dooma talks about voice actors! - 8 August 2026
It’s Dooma.I wrote a post a while ago about how I got involved with JOIN US, and some of my experiences as the game’s narrative director. Today I’m going to discuss the most important technology we use for creating our game’s core narrative elements. Part of our success as a 12-person independent developer stems from choosing the right technology for the right job. And when it comes to writing and voicing the game’s dialogue, there’s no technology like “H.I.”.At first glance “H.I.” looks kind of like “A.I.” but instead of forming an upside-down “V”, the two vertical lines on the first letter are parallel to each other, like the goal posts in a football end zone. “H.I.” is short for “Human Intelligence” - which is a roundabout way of saying every line of dialogue in JOIN US was written and voice-acted by actual human beings instead of robots.Annoying the locals. But now they can talk bac…
- JOIN US: Release Date (Spoiler Alert: It's March '27) - 7 June 2026
Hey, this is Joe, the creative director of JOIN US.We made a social post last Christmas. There were cult people dancing with Santa hats. In the end we wrote "Coming 2026. Because The Apocalypse Doesn't Push Its Release Date". We thought it was a good line. Not hilarious, but a solid 6/10. And that was the plan. Exceeeept... ...we're going to push the release date of JOIN US to MARCH 2027. But it's for a good reason! The March release will cover PC, XBOX, PlayStation, and additional handheld devices. It will be a full release of the game with all the polish and player comforts that you'd expect with that milestone.Our Fall launch would have been Beta or Early Access, and it would have likely come with the typical challenges of that experience. Also, if you think about it, moving the date of the Apocalypse is VERY cult. So, at least we're on brand. The apocalypse definitely is coming and…
- May Updates! - 19 May 2026
JOIN US - Dev Updates!Hello from the dev side! This is Joe the Creative Director. I was sitting around working on the tutorial, and realized I hadn't posted anything on the blogs for 2 months. I promise we've been working on the game and not slacking off. Actually, we've been really busy with the game. But we did slack on blogs. In our defense, we made TikToks. Also, everyone on our team got sick. Sort of a biblical plague situation at the office. JOIN US is a weird game normally, but its way weirder when you're running a high fever. Not recommended. We survived. The good news is that we're feature locked! For a bigger studio, that would mean we're purely handling polish and optimization. For us (11 people with nobody to tell us what to do and a shoddy work-life-balance) that means that we're not going add any brand new mechanics, and our focus is very much shifting to polish and optimi…
- JOIN US: Fall Release - 26 February 2026
Hi, it's Joe, creative director on JOIN US. We made a cult game. Last September, we made a trailer for our cult game so that people would know it existed. We were pretty proud of our trailer. There was a big octopus at end that people seemed to like. Then we worked more on the game and it got better.Shooting up a dam with a leopard print minigun. No wider context. We put this early in the blog so people would keep reading. That's it. Lots of people asked us when the game was going to come out, but we had to be weird and secret because... Marketing? Business? Terror? Long story short, we decided to plant a flag and get this thing out the door.So we're going to say it's coming in... FALLIn fairness, Fall is not a date. It's the time of year when the leaves change and pumpkin beverages return. Also there's weird table decor being sold at department stores that smells like cinnamon for what…
- Multiplayer in JOIN US! - 16 February 2026
Hey, it's Pierre-Olivier Chartrand, Technical Director at Wolf Haus Games. I wanted to give a quick overview of our co-op multiplayer setup for Join Us. We're huge fans of games like Valheim, State of Decay, Project Zomboid, and The Forest - so supporting multiplayer from day one was non-negotiable for us.Riding farm animals at sunset is better with friends.You get those moments like splitting up with your friends, one building the base, another scavenging for resources, and the last one spending more time on the wiki than actually playing. An interesting design opportunity is that, since our game puts followers at the forefront, they receive a lot of love and are smarter and much more useful than your average NPC (see our post showcasing their system here!). This ensures that solo play stays meaningful and doesn’t turn into a grind.Behind The Scenes...Here be dragons.From a technical s…
- 2026... The End of The Beginning - 24 January 2026
DEVELOPMENT UPDATESHello! This is Joe, the Creative Director. We're up and running in 2026 and making this cult game.Follower management techniques! Baseball bat optional but strongly encouraged.BIG STUFF WE'RE DOING:The last 2 weeks at the office have been all about adding TEACHINGS. Teachings are how you craft a customized cult ideology and shape your reality. Some new Teachings are:UFO worship/visitations. Ghosts of dead Followers return at night. If you upgrade to Poltergeists they can use guns because the only thing scarier than a ghost is a ghost with an automatic rifle.Spontaneous Human Combustion; people have a chance to burst into flames when damaged.Followers can carry seeds so that, over time, edible plants sprout where they die.The cult can eat worms... or people. Your call. Staring directly at the sun will regen health - and mess up your vision.Possessed farm animals defend…
- 2D Art in JOIN US! - 4 January 2026
Hey everyone!I’m Gen, I work on all the 2D illustrations for JOIN US; menus, HUD, icons, scribbles, basically anything that involves pens, ink, or a paintbrush eventually ends up on my very chaotic and unorganized desk.Where the magic happens.JOIN US is actually the very first video game I’ve ever worked on. Before this, my world was entirely offline. I’ve always worked with real ink and paper, running my own small craft shop, spending weekends at fairs and comic-cons, selling prints and handmade goodies.In a very digital era, I’ve been pretty stubborn about sticking to traditional tools. My use of technology barely goes beyond scanning my drawings so they can be printed. I don’t even own a graphic tablet. Ironically, that exact stubbornness paired with my total inability to work digitally, is precisely what Join Us was looking for.Some of the UI images. Also the Wolf Haus logo that Gen…
- MEET A DEV: Story - 18 December 2025
My name is Dooma Wendschuh and I used to write AAA games. Teams hundreds strong. Huge budgets. Endless days, blurring together: screenwriting software, narrative flow charts. That smell of the studio that I just can’t forget. Even longer days with actors in the voiceover booth. Thousands of lines, pick the best ones. Traveling - on planes… a lot. Microwave Indian food at the studio in Morocco. Vodka at the studio in St. Petersburg. Shows. Autographs. Interviews. Conferences. Sleep? Maybe when I retire. And then, finally, I did retire. On a remote island where seal hunting is kind of a big thing. They’re cute - like sea-puppies. Bought a restaurant- best seal nachos you’ve ever had. Walked my dog along stunning red cliffs in the snow. It was great. Then Abbott called. His friend Joe had made a game. On nights and weekends, while working full time as a movie director and shooting commerci…
- MEET A DEV: MUSIC - 3 December 2025
Here a sample of the Hero Suite score here: Dear Cultists,Ben Bostick the composer here. Greetings from Atlanta, GA, where I sit in my studio taking a brief break from scoring the magnificent, glorious end scene of Join Us. Too many great stories have disappointing endings—not this one. The end is near, and it’s oh so sweet!Scoring Join Us is my first experience working on a video game. I have done some composing for film/TV/ads/events/etc… but most of my musical career has been centered around the popular music side of the clef; as a songwriter, producer, and performer. So years ago, when my friend Joe first started asking me if I was interested in scoring a game he was making, I didn’t let myself get too excited. I figured he would eventually come to his senses and hire someone qualified for the job.Then a few months ago, Joe casually told me it was really happening, and the time to s…
- MEET A DEV: Followers - 16 November 2025
This will be an ongoing series of MEET A DEV where our team chimes in on various aspects of the game's development. It might be showing off what we're building, crowd sourcing some creative choices, talking about what we had for breakfast, etc.FIRST UP..... Jon, our Head of Game Design to talk about FOLLOWERS! Hey! I’m Jon, the guy behind the game design on JOIN US. Today I want to talk about how we make every cult feel unique, starting with your Followers. In JOIN US, your most valuable resource isn't rocks and wood -- it's human beings. When Followers die in combat, they usually stay dead. Emphasis on usually. Running a doomsday cult actually means taking good care of your people. A real cult leader doesn’t bark orders. They inspire. Lead the vibe, don’t micromanage it.There’s no main playable character in JOIN US. Anyone who joins your cult can be controlled/possessed as the player.…
- Happy Halloween! - 29 October 2025
🎃🎃🎃 HAPPY HALLOWEEN from our cult to yours 🎃🎃🎃To get into the spirit of the season, we tried out spooky compound designs using the modular building system. We added some new decorations like torches to juice up the nighttime atmosphere.Spooky Halloween compound builds.The transition from day to night has also been a big consideration for JOIN US. A lot of Teachings in the game revolve around times of day (your cult is stronger at night, you rest at sunset, etc) so we wanted to make sure that the game is equally playable at all points in the day/night cycle. The idea of an oppressively dark night didn't feel correct in a game where players might commit to a nighttime-focused play-through. This has lead to a lot of tweaking of moon size, moon intensity, and shadow contrast. Unreal has a quirk where the map can get very dark at the point where the sun and moon are both below the hori…
- JOIN US... on discord - 10 October 2025
OUR DISCORD! https://discord.gg/joinusgameWe have a Discord! This was very exciting for us. So exciting, in fact, that instead of working on JOIN US we spent time making a silly graphic for the blog header. We hope to see everyone over on Discord so we can talk about cults. Most of the devs are on Discord at all hours of the day and night anyway, but we’re going to make a point to hang live a couple times a week (times are on the Discord server under Events). The team has been dialing in various elements of the gameplay loop. In a typical game session you’re building up your compound, recruiting Followers to work your compound, issuing Teachings to keep your Followers in line, and expanding your territory through a mix of propaganda and combat. We made all of this harder on ourselves because we decided do a co-op game, but what’s the point of a cult game if you can’t bring your friends?…
- We're building a doomsday cult! - 3 October 2025
Oh, hello. Thanks for checking out our cult game.We were going to write "thanks for joining us" but that felt like a lame way to start off a relationship.If you’ve made it this far, you probably already know about JOIN US. If you don’t, it’s confusing why you’re reading this – but long story short, we’re making a game where you build a doomsday cult of your very own! It’s a lot of fun and we’re excited to get it out the door in 2026.Wolf Haus Games is a small team of 10 full-time employees and 4 contractors. We’re based in Montreal. Our backgrounds cover gaming and movies. Members of our team have worked on franchises like Assassin’s Creed, Batman Arkham, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six, among a ton of others.Mostly, we just like making games.Our goal for the studio is to make the games that we would want to play.Or, as it says on the website, “We make the games that we wanted to play when we…
