The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, giving viewers a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with an image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final edit was the infamous snake‑gun, a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a child’s imagination. "One of the team member’s sons asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that lets us spin up a new gun in minutes, so within half an hour I built a weapon that actually fires snakes.
The kid was blown away, and we kept it in the game," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us.
The title is an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates Wolf Haus’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a small, high‑fidelity project to be built by a surprisingly tiny team. Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, describes their ambition succinctly: “We wanted to be disruptors.” "Everyone told us it was impossible to build a game of this scope with just twelve people.
We’d spent our careers in indie film, learning to punch far above our weight, so we knew it could be done," Abbott says. After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving Wolf Haus the runway it needed.
The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson and another Wolf Haus co‑founder. Together they 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 started by Chris Roberts before he moved on to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
"Unreal was free to download, and I’d been a gamer my whole life, but the barrier to actually building something felt huge. I started watching YouTube tutorials and tinkering," he explains.
Despite no formal training, he managed to ship a couple of small games before deciding to tackle something bigger—a doomsday cult simulator that married his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept prototype, assuming he would eventually hit a technical wall.
When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter took it to Dooma, a partner who helped refine the vision. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million.
After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back. "I was looking at a game Joe had built and it completely blew my mind.
It convinced me to step out of retirement," Wendschuh says. He then introduced the project to Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic, and Schneider recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer.
With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was funding—a daunting task during the industry downturn of 2023‑24. Initial pitches generated interest but also skepticism.
The studio eventually partnered with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, which helped secure a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh notes that CAA’s representation, which also covers titles like 007: First Light, and the presence of seasoned veterans such as Schneider and Chartrand were instrumental in winning over investors. Despite the high‑profile backing, Wolf Haus has deliberately kept its staff lean—13 full‑time members at the time of writing. "We entered the project with a clear sense of scope and wanted to preserve a small‑team culture where everyone’s voice matters," says Dietsch.
To make such an ambitious open‑world possible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on. "Every system needs to be scalable and debuggable by a single person. We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a massive map without the project collapsing under its own weight," he explains. This tool‑first philosophy not only enabled Join Us but also laid the groundwork for future titles.
The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect those tools. "Krafton and Lifelike’s investment funds the development directly, so the game is essentially self‑funded. We’re now only adding a small amount of project finance for marketing," Wendschuh clarifies. Because the investors own equity, they are motivated to see the studio increase in enterprise value, which aligns with Wolf Haus’s commitment to building robust internal tools rather than cutting corners.
When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—Dietsch is unequivocal: the studio does not rely on it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Using AI to generate core content would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," he says. Wendschuh adds that the team only uses AI for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting, not for art, design, or narrative. Interestingly, Krafton, which markets itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly discouraged the use of generative AI in Wolf Haus’s pipeline.
This mirrors the stance of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly rejected the parent’s AI pivot. Both companies emphasize preserving creative jobs for voice actors, artists, and writers. Dietsch confirms that every square kilometre of Join Us’s map is handcrafted, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—a point of pride for the indie team. Dietsch reflects on the contrast between film and games.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and massive budgets before a director sees it on set. In game development, an idea can be prototyped the same day it is conceived.
"You can take a concept from a morning brainstorm and drop it into the engine, see it instantly, and iterate right away. That immediacy is exhilarating," he says. Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense pre‑production phases focused on securing high‑profile talent to green‑light a project. While anyone can technically shoot a movie with a backyard camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare.
By contrast, the barriers to entry for games are lower, making it easier for small teams to achieve success without A‑list names. Both founders agree that the core creative impulse remains the same across mediums: storytelling and delivering an experience. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It boiled down to a coin toss and whether I got a camera for Christmas.
I learned to program on a TI‑83, so the passion never left. Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re trying to tell a story and engage an audience. That doesn’t change," Dietsch concludes.