You may remember seeing the Join Us trailer during the Xbox Showcase in June. The clip introduced a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation where robed followers charge on pig‑back while firing machine guns, culminating in a shot of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the final edit was the infamous snake gun, a feature that CEO and creative director Joe Dietsch of Wolf Haus Games proudly points to as a hallmark of the studio’s playful, improvisational spirit.
"One of the team members’ kids suggested, ‘What if there was a snake‑shooter?’" Dietsch recounts. "We have a modular weapon system that lets us spin up new guns in minutes, so I hacked together a snake‑gun in about half an hour. The kid went wild, and the weapon survived into the final build." That anecdote captures the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay Join Us aims to deliver. Set in an open‑world environment reminiscent of 1970s cult movies, players can recruit AI followers or friends in co‑op mode to build and lead their own eccentric cult.
The same story also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a small group of developers to produce a high‑fidelity title that would traditionally require a much larger staff. "We wanted to be disruptors," says Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer. "We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred people; twelve will do.’ Most people laughed, but we proved them wrong." The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets.
Abbott notes that many of them came from indie film backgrounds, where resourcefulness is a daily requirement. After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the studio. Wolf Haus’s founding trio brings deep Hollywood connections to the table.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—and the two 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, a production company founded by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. The seed of Join Us sprouted when Dietsch began tinkering with Unreal Engine.
"Unreal was free to download, and I’d been a gamer forever, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge," he explains. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday‑cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
The concept felt like a natural bridge between the movies he loved and the interactive experiences he wanted to craft. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming it would soon hit a technical wall. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and introduced it to Dooma, the company that would later become Wolf Haus.
Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had begun his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing writing services for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
In the 2010s he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (about $330 million USD). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire and enjoy a quiet life. That plan was abruptly interrupted when his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, called and said, "A buddy of mine has made a video game." Curious, Wendschuh watched the early Join Us demo, was blown away, and decided to come out of retirement. He brought the project to Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros.
Games vice‑president now heading Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet. Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With leadership in place, the studio turned its attention to financing. The first pitch round began in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn.
"People liked what we were showing, but the market was tight," Dietsch recalls. The team enlisted the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to help navigate the pitch process, returning in 2024 with a refined deck that ultimately secured seed investment from Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Wendschuh believes the CAA connection—alongside veteran advisors like Schneider and Chartrand—was instrumental. "My agent Derek Douglas, who handled my game‑dev career for twelve years, also heads the video‑game department at William Morris. That kind of pedigree opens doors," he says.
Despite the high‑profile backing, Join Us remains a product of a remarkably lean operation: only 13 full‑time staff members. The studio deliberately kept the team small to preserve a collaborative atmosphere where every voice matters and everyone can touch the creative core. "We entered the project with a crystal‑clear sense of scope," Dietsch notes, "and we built a culture where each person contributes directly to the game’s identity." A key to achieving such ambition with a tiny crew was the early investment in custom tooling.
"Any system in the game has to be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. The first year of development was split evenly between ideating gameplay and engineering the internal tools that would later allow the open‑world map to expand without collapsing under its own weight. This tool‑first philosophy also aligns with the investors’ expectations.
"Krafton and Lifelike are equity partners, so the money they put in funds the entire development," says Wendschuh. "The game is essentially self‑funded; we only tap external project finance for marketing later on." The equity model gives the studio freedom to build tools whenever a problem arises, even if it slows short‑term progress.
"We solve challenges by building a bespoke tool, which lets a handful of people accomplish what would otherwise need a large team," Wendschuh adds. When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—Dietsch gives a concise answer: "We don’t use it.
The human touch is essential to our process." Wendschuh expands slightly, noting that the studio does employ AI services for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, but never for creative work. Interestingly, Krafton, which has branded itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the game's creation.
This stance mirrors that of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly distanced itself from the parent’s AI pivot. Both Wendschuh and Dietsch stress that they view AI as a potential threat to creative jobs, particularly for voice actors and artists. Join Us features a six‑kilometre‑square map handcrafted by the team, and its 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human talent—a point of pride for the studio.
Dietsch reflects on the differences between filmmaking and game development. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals before a director ever sees the final product.
In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and instantly visualised. "That immediacy is intoxicating," he says.
Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, high‑budget set periods that rely on securing a few high‑profile names to green‑light a project. While anyone can shoot a low‑budget movie with a backyard camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare.
Game development, however, has far fewer gatekeepers. "You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game," he notes, highlighting the democratising potential of interactive media. Both men agree that the core creative impulse—telling a story and delivering an experience—remains the same across mediums. Dietsch recalls that as a six‑year‑old he wanted to make either movies or games, and a coin toss (plus a Christmas camera) set him on his path.
Whether through film or interactive play, the goal is to engage audiences, and that mission drives the tiny yet ambitious team at Wolf Haus as they bring Join Us to life.