The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator where robed followers ride pig‑mounted platforms, unleash machine‑gun fire, and ultimately confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the final cut 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 members’ kids asked if we could make a snake‑gun," Dietsch recalls.
"We had a modular weapon system, so I whipped up a prototype in about thirty minutes. The kid was thrilled, and the gun stayed in the game." This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite 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 small crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, sums up their philosophy: "We set out to be disruptors. We told ourselves, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person team; twelve talented people can do this.’ Everyone else thought we were naïve." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where lean budgets and inventive problem‑solving are the norm. After 80 pitch meetings, the studio finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving Wolf Haus the financial runway to continue development.
The founders’ Hollywood credentials run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of actor‑director 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 transition to the Star Citizen universe. Abbott’s film résumé also includes producing credits on titles 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 felt blocked by the cost of entry for creating them," he explains. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a handful of tiny prototypes, and eventually settled on the idea of a doomsday cult simulator—a mash‑up of survival mechanics, grindhouse cinema aesthetics, and the narrative freedom he cherished in both movies and games.
The proof‑of‑concept was a rough, sandbox‑style demo that Dietsch showed to Abbott, who then introduced it to Dooma, a production partner. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had begun his career as a screenwriter and producer before moving into games in the early 2000s, contributing writing to Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. He later founded several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million. After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry.
Wendschuh was instantly impressed by the demo and brought it to Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet.
Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as Wolf Haus’s chief technology officer. With this core team in place, the studio turned its attention to funding—a daunting task given the industry’s downturn in 2023. Initial outreach yielded interest but no commitments, prompting the team to enlist Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for representation.
After a second round of pitches in 2024, Lifelike Capital and Krafton came on board, providing the seed round needed to move forward. The partnership with CAA proved valuable; the agency also represents titles such as 007: First Light, and its video‑game specialist Derek Douglas, who had represented Wendschuh during his earlier game‑development years, helped open doors. Yet the most striking aspect of Join Us remains its development model: a full‑time staff of just thirteen people.
"We entered the project with a clear understanding of scope and a desire to keep the team intimate," says Dietsch. "Everyone has a voice, everyone touches the creative process, and the game feels like a product of a tight‑knit group rather than a faceless corporation." To make such an ambitious open‑world title feasible for a small crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch notes. The studio built a robust internal toolkit that allowed features to proliferate across the six‑kilometre‑square map without causing the project to collapse under its own weight.
This tool‑first approach consumed much of the first year of development but paid dividends by enabling rapid iteration and future‑proofing for subsequent projects. Funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital is structured as equity, meaning the investors share in the studio’s long‑term value creation.
This model gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect its tools rather than rush to market. "Equity partners want the studio to increase its enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," explains Wendschuh. "When we encounter a problem we can’t solve off‑the‑shelf, we build a bespoke solution. It may slow short‑term progress, but it empowers us to deliver a high‑quality game with a tiny team." In an era where many studios tout generative‑AI pipelines, Wolf Haus deliberately steers clear of AI for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential," Dietsch asserts. "Using AI to generate assets would undermine why we get up every morning—to craft something with our own hands." The studio does employ generative‑AI tools for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, but none of the game’s art, design, or narrative content is AI‑generated. Interestingly, Krafton—despite branding itself as an “AI‑first” company—insisted that Wolf Haus not rely on generative AI for core development, mirroring a similar stance taken by its subsidiary Neon Giant.
The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s massive map and voice work. The entire six‑kilometre‑square world was manually built, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, a point the team emphasizes as a badge of pride. "We wanted to prove that a small indie can still deliver a fully human‑crafted experience," says Dietsch.
Dietsch also reflects on the contrast between filmmaking and game development. In film, an idea can take years to materialise, navigating layers of approval, casting, and studio green‑lights.
In games, an inspiration can be prototyped within hours, allowing creators to see immediate results in the engine. This immediacy fuels his enthusiasm for interactive media. Wendschuh adds that film production is heavily front‑loaded: securing a few high‑profile directors or actors is often the make‑or‑break factor for a studio’s green‑light.
While anyone can technically shoot a low‑budget movie, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. By contrast, the video‑game landscape has fewer gatekeepers, making it easier for a small, talented team to reach a global audience without marquee names. Both founders agree that the core drive behind both mediums is storytelling and experience design.
"Whether you’re making a movie or a game, you’re trying to give someone an experience, tell a story, and engage them," Dietsch says. His childhood fascination with both cameras and programming laid the groundwork for a career that now bridges Hollywood and interactive entertainment.
Join Us is poised to deliver a uniquely chaotic, humor‑laden cult simulation that showcases what a focused, tool‑driven, human‑centric development process can achieve, even without the crutches of generative AI or a massive staff. The project stands as a testament to the power of cross‑industry expertise, lean budgeting, and a steadfast belief that a dozen passionate creators can build something truly epic.