The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers charge on pig‑back, firing machine guns before the screen fades to a massive, Cthulhu‑like tangle of tentacles. What didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—originated from a child’s off‑hand suggestion.
"One of the team member’s kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototype tool that let us spin up a new firearm in about thirty minutes, so I built it on the fly. The kid went nuts, and the weapon stuck around in the final build," Dietsch recalls. This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit followers—or teammates—to build a 1970s‑style cult. The game’s design philosophy mirrors the studio’s broader approach: lean, tech‑first, and deliberately disruptive.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed it up: "We set out to prove you don’t need a hundred‑person studio to deliver a high‑fidelity experience. Twelve developers, that’s all we aimed for, even though everyone told us it was impossible." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where small crews routinely punch above their budgetary weight. After roughly eighty pitch meetings, the studio finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood credentials run deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who now co‑heads Wolf Haus. 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 originally founded by Chris Roberts before his Star Citizen venture. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us sprouted from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "I discovered Unreal was free to download and started tinkering after watching countless YouTube tutorials," he says. Although he had never built a game before, he managed to craft a few modest prototypes before committing to a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that blends survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, hit a technical wall, and showed it to Abbott, who then introduced the concept to Dooma. Dooma Wendschuh, the studio’s chief financial officer and narrative director, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, supplying narrative work 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 C$430 million (about $330 million USD).
After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from former roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry. "I watched the demo Joe sent me and it completely blew my mind—so I came out of retirement," Wendschuh recalls. He then recruited Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros Games VP, as a strategic advisor, and brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. Funding proved to be the next hurdle.
The team began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. Initial outreach generated interest but not capital. After signing with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Los Angeles, they re‑pitched throughout 2024 and eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh notes that CAA’s representation—also handling titles like 007: First Light—combined with the credibility of veterans like Schneider and Chartrand, was instrumental in winning the investors’ confidence.
Despite the pedigree, the studio’s production model remains remarkably small: only thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the team deliberately kept the roster tight to preserve a collaborative atmosphere where every voice matters and each person can touch both creative and technical aspects. To make such an ambitious open‑world game feasible with a lean crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in proprietary tooling from day one.
"Every system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. "We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and engineering the tools that would let that gameplay scale across a six‑kilometre‑square map without collapsing under its own weight." The equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike allowed the studio to self‑fund development, using the capital exclusively for the game’s creation. Only a modest portion of later financing has been earmarked for marketing. This structure aligns with the investors’ goal of increasing the studio’s enterprise value, encouraging Wolf Haus to continue building reusable tools that can accelerate future projects.
When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—both Dietsch and Wendschuh were unequivocal: the studio does not rely on AI for any creative work. "We believe a game needs a human touch.
Using AI to generate assets would undermine why we get up every morning," Dietsch says. Wendschuh adds that the only AI they employ is for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Interestingly, Krafton, which has publicly positioned itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline as a condition of their investment. This mirrors a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant, which also distanced itself from AI‑driven content creation. The studio’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the world itself and its audio. The entire six‑kilometre‑square map was manually built, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors—an effort Dietsch describes as essential even for an indie title.
Dietsch reflects on the contrast between filmmaking and game development. In film, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and studio greenlights before any footage is shot. In games, however, an inspiration can be prototyped within hours, allowing developers to see and iterate on their vision immediately.
"You can have an idea at breakfast and drop it into the engine by lunch," he says, highlighting the immediacy that fuels his passion. Wendschuh points out that movies are heavily front‑loaded: securing high‑profile talent and studio backing before production even begins.
While anyone can technically shoot a low‑budget film, breaking through without marquee names or distribution is rare. Games, by contrast, have far fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without needing an A‑list director or star.
Both founders agree that the core creative drive—telling stories and delivering experiences—remains the same across mediums. Dietsch recalls his childhood fascination with both cameras and computers, noting that whether one makes a film or a game, the ultimate goal is to engage an audience and convey a narrative.
This shared purpose fuels Wolf Haus’s ambitious yet intimate approach to building Join Us, a game that marries cult‑themed chaos with meticulous hand‑crafted design, all without the crutch of generative AI.