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 charge on pigs, fire machine guns, and the climax reveals massive Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the cut, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—was the absurdly entertaining snake‑gun. "One of the developers’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us scale weapons in minutes, so I whipped up a gun that shoots snakes in about half an hour. The kid went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls.
This anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a relatively tiny team to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a far larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors.
We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve people can do this.’ Most people laughed and called it impossible." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where they learned to achieve cinematic results on shoestring budgets. After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the company. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of 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 Star Citizen venture. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s idle experimentation in Unreal Engine.
"Unreal Engine is free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a huge barrier to actually creating something," he explains. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few small prototypes, and eventually settled on the concept of a doomsday cult simulator—a mash‑up of survival mechanics and grindhouse cinema that blended his passions for movies and games into a single intellectual property.
The first proof‑of‑concept demo was a rough but ambitious showcase of the core loop. Dietsch showed it to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, the company that would later become Wolf Haus. Dooma Wendschuh, the studio’s CFO and narrative director, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s.
He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he built several tech ventures, including the cannabis‑formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, planning a quiet retirement.
That retirement was short‑lived. "Out of the blue, my old Hollywood‑Hills roommate Michael Abbott called and said, ‘A friend has made a video game.’ I watched the demo, it blew my mind, and I came out of retirement," Wendschuh recounts. He introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros.
Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, who became a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With a core team forming, the next hurdle was funding—particularly challenging during the industry downturn of 2023‑24. The studio pitched relentlessly, eventually partnering with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for representation. Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton provided a seed round, allowing the team to continue development without compromising their vision.
Despite the high‑profile backers, the studio remains lean: only 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that this small size is intentional: "We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative, and to feel ownership of the game." To make a sprawling open‑world possible with such a limited crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling early on. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch says.
The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and building the internal tools that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight. The equity funding model gave the studio the runway to perfect those tools. "Krafton and Lifelike’s investment is used to finance the game itself, making it essentially self‑funded," explains Wendschuh.
"We’re now adding a bit of project finance for marketing, but the core development was covered by our equity partners." This arrangement aligns investor incentives with the studio’s ethos of tool‑driven development: whenever a problem arises, the team builds a bespoke solution, even if it slows short‑term progress, because it enables them to maintain a small team while delivering a large‑scale experience. When asked about generative AI, a hot topic in game development, Dietsch gives a clear answer: the studio does not use it for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Handing creation over to an AI would defeat why we get up every morning," he says. Wendschuh adds that the only AI tools they employ are mundane productivity aids—calendar scheduling and email drafting—not anything that influences art, design, or narrative. Interestingly, Krafton, which has marketed itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring similar statements from Krafton‑owned Neon Giant.
The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. Dietsch stresses that this level of human‑generated detail mattered to them, even as an indie studio.
Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and games. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring green‑lights, A‑list talent, and extensive pre‑production.
In games, an idea can be prototyped the same day it is conceived, allowing immediate iteration. "You can have an idea in the morning, drop it into the engine, see it instantly, and start tweaking," he says.
Wendschuh notes that while film production is front‑loaded with intense, high‑stakes set work, games have fewer gatekeepers—no need for an A‑list director or star to secure financing. This democratization, he believes, makes it more feasible for a small, passionate team to create a successful product.
Both founders trace their love of storytelling back to childhood. Dietsch remembers wanting to make either movies or games at age six, a decision that ultimately hinged on a Christmas gift—a camera. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, blending the two mediums from the start. "Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience," he concludes, underscoring the shared creative impulse that drives Wolf Haus’s ambitious, AI‑free, twelve‑person venture.