The trailer for Join Us made a splash at the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator where robed followers zip around on pigs, fire machine guns, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t appear in the showcase was the infamous "snake gun," a quirky weapon that, according to Wolf Haus Games’ CEO and creative director Joe Dietsch, was born from a simple suggestion by a team member’s son.
"He asked, ‘What if there’s a gun that shoots snakes?’" Dietsch recalls. "Because we had built a modular gun system, I could prototype a snake‑shooter in roughly half an hour. The kid went wild, and we kept it in the final build." That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit AI followers or friends in co‑op mode to form a 1970s‑style cult.
It also illustrates why Wolf Haus leans heavily on custom tooling: the studio has managed to produce a high‑fidelity, content‑rich experience with just a dozen‑plus developers. "We set out to be disruptors," says COO Michael Abbott. "We told ourselves, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve talented people can do it.’ Most people thought we were naïve." The team’s confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where small crews routinely punch far above their financial weight.
After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took a stake in the company. Wolf Haus’ leadership is steeped in Hollywood pedigree.
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 movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. The genesis of Join Us traces back to Dietsch tinkering with Unreal Engine.
"Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games, but the barrier to actually building one felt huge," he explains. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming it would soon hit a technical wall. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter immediately took it to Dooma, a partner studio that helped refine the concept. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’ CFO and narrative director, 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, most notably the cannabis‑formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After that windfall he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire.
But a call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back. "Joe sent me a video of his game and it blew my mind," Wendschuh says.
He then introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former Warner Bros. Games VP and now head of Raccoon Logic, who became a strategic advisor and recruited former Ubisoft Montreal programmer Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand as CTO. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing—a daunting task during the industry downturn of 2023‑24. Initial pitches generated interest but no commitments.
After aligning with CAA in Los Angeles and re‑pitching in 2024, Wolf Haus finally closed a seed round with Krafton and Lifelike Capital. Wendschuh credits the CAA relationship and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for the successful raise.
"My agent Derek Douglas, who also handled my game‑dev deals for twelve years, was instrumental," he notes. Despite the high‑profile backers, Join Us remains a lean operation: only 13 full‑time staff members.
The studio’s philosophy is to keep the team small enough that every voice matters and everyone can touch the creative core. To make such an ambitious title feasible, Wolf Haus invested heavily in internal tools from day one. "Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. "We spent the first year ideating the game while simultaneously building the toolset that would let us expand without the project collapsing under its own weight." The equity funding model gave the studio the runway to perfect these tools.
Krafton and Lifelike’s capital was used to self‑fund development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. "Our investors are motivated to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑centric ethos," says Wendschuh.
"When we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a custom tool. It may slow short‑term progress but enables a tiny team to achieve something massive." In an era where many studios tout generative AI to cut costs, Wolf Haus deliberately shuns it for creative work. "We believe a game needs a human touch," Dietsch says.
"Using AI to generate core content would defeat the reason we get up each morning." Wendschuh adds that the studio only uses AI for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting. "We have no AI involvement in art, design, or writing," he affirms.
Interestingly, Krafton—publicly branding itself as an "AI‑first" company—insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in its creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The team’s commitment to handcrafted content is evident: the six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is entirely hand‑built, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors. "Even as a small indie, we felt that preserving that human element was non‑negotiable," Dietsch stresses. Dietsch also notes a key advantage of game development over film: immediacy.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and studio green‑lights. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, inserted into the engine, and instantly visualised. This rapid feedback loop fuels the studio’s iterative process. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, high‑budget set‑ups and a reliance on star power to secure financing.
While anyone can shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without marquee names or distribution is rare. Games, however, have far fewer gatekeepers; a small team can launch a successful title without A‑list talent.
Both mediums, though, share a common creative impulse: storytelling and immersion. Dietsch reflects, "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games.
It boiled down to a coin toss and a camera for Christmas. I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been drawn to both. Whether you’re crafting a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. The tools change, but the goal stays the same."