The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, giving viewers a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation. In the clip, robed followers zip around on pigs, firing machine guns, before the screen fades to a massive, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a child’s imagination. "My team member’s son asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool, so in about thirty minutes I built it.
The kid was ecstatic, and we kept the weapon in the game," 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 invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult.
It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would traditionally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, sums up their philosophy: "We set out to be disruptors. Everyone told us a twelve‑person team couldn’t deliver a game of this scale, but we knew from indie filmmaking that a lean crew can punch well above its weight." After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus.
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 he turned his attention to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies 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 always loved games, but the barrier to actually making one felt huge.
I started watching YouTube tutorials and tinkering," he says. Though he had never built a game before, Dietsch managed a few small prototypes before deciding to tackle something bigger: a doomsday cult simulator that fused his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming he would soon hit a technical wall. When he showed it to Abbott, the latter took it to Dooma, a production partner.
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, contributing writing to titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. He later founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for 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, changed his plans. "He said a friend had made a video game and wanted my opinion. I watched the demo and it blew my mind, pulling me 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, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With the core team in place, the next hurdle was financing. Pitching began in summer 2023, a period marked by an industry downturn. "People liked what we were building, but the market was tough," says Dietsch.
After initial outreach, Wolf Haus signed with CAA in Los Angeles, refined its pitch, and returned to investors in 2024, ultimately closing a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh believes CAA’s representation—also handling titles like 007: First Light—was pivotal, as were veteran advisors Schneider and Chartrand. "My agent Derek Douglas, who handled my game work for twelve years, also heads CAA’s video‑game department," Wendschuh notes. Despite the high‑profile backing, Join Us remains a product of a remarkably small team—13 full‑time staff members.
"We entered the project with a clear sense of scope and wanted to keep a tight‑knit environment where everyone’s voice matters," Dietsch explains. To make an ambitious open‑world game feasible for such a lean crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on. "Every system must be scalable and debuggable by a single person.
We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across the map without the project collapsing under its own weight," he says. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and engineering the tools that would sustain it.
The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools. "Krafton and Lifelike’s investment has essentially self‑funded the game.
We’re now adding a modest project‑finance line for marketing, but the core development has been covered by their equity," Wendschuh explains. This structure aligns investor incentives with the studio’s ethos of tool‑driven development: whenever a problem arises, they build a bespoke solution, even if it slows short‑term progress, because it enables the small team to achieve big ambitions.
When asked about generative AI, Dietsch is unequivocal: the studio does not rely on it for creative work. "We value the human touch in game making. Hand‑crafting ideas is why we get up each morning," he says.
Wendschuh adds that the only AI they employ is for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton—publicly branding itself as an "AI‑first" company—specifically required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, echoing similar statements from other Krafton‑owned studios. The team’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map was built manually, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, a point Dietsch emphasizes as a badge of pride for an indie studio.
Dietsch also reflects on the contrast between film and games. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals and high‑profile talent. In game development, an concept can be prototyped in a single morning and instantly visualised in the engine, offering a immediacy he finds exhilarating. Wendschuh agrees, noting that while film production is front‑loaded with intense, high‑stakes set work, games have fewer gatekeepers; a small team can launch a successful product without needing A‑list actors or directors.
Both creators agree that storytelling is the common thread. "Whether you’re making a movie or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience," Dietsch concludes, adding that his childhood fascination with both mediums set him on a path where the line between them is increasingly blurred.