The trailer for Join Us first caught the public’s eye during the Xbox Showcase in June, unveiling a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator where robed devotees zip around on pigs, unleash a hail of machine‑gun fire, and ultimately confront colossal, Cthulhu‑esque tentacles. Yet the most memorable moment that 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—was born from a simple suggestion by a team member’s child.
"His son asked, ‘What would a snake gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that lets us scale a weapon in minutes, so I threw together a snake‑shooting gun in about half an hour. The kid went nuts, and the gun stayed in the game," Dietsch recalls.
This anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or invite friends into co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult. The story also highlights the studio’s heavy reliance on custom‑built technology, a strategy that has enabled a small, highly skilled team to produce a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a far larger workforce. Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, sums up their ambition: "We wanted to be the disruptors. The industry assumes you need a hundred‑person army to make a AAA‑level title.
We said, ‘What if we can do it with twelve?’" Skeptics dismissed the notion, but the team drew confidence from a history of achieving outsized results on modest budgets. "We come from indie filmmaking, where you punch far above your weight every day," Abbott explains. After an exhaustive 80‑pitch marathon, they finally secured equity financing from both Krafton and Lifelike Capital, each taking a stake in Wolf Haus.
The founders’ Hollywood credentials are deep‑rooted. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, and together they co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie features Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott, the son of veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott, helped launch Ascendant Pictures—originally founded by Chris Roberts before his shift to the space‑sim Star Citizen—and later produced titles such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
This blend of cinematic pedigree and entrepreneurial grit laid the groundwork for their foray into interactive entertainment. The seed of Join Us sprouted when Dietsch began experimenting with Unreal Engine after discovering that the software could be downloaded for free. "I’d been a gamer forever, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge. I started watching YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and then the idea of a doomsday cult simulator kept resurfacing," he says.
The concept merged his love for survival mechanics, grindhouse aesthetics, and narrative‑driven storytelling—essentially a cinematic experience wrapped in a sandbox game. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, expecting it to hit a technical wall at some point. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and introduced it to Dooma, an early partner that helped refine the vision. Meanwhile, Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, brought a unique blend of film‑writing expertise and tech entrepreneurship to the table.
He had previously supplied narrative services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins through his company Sekretagent Productions, and later founded the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire and enjoy a quiet life. But a random call from his old Hollywood‑hillroommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the creative arena. "I looked at the demo Joe had built, and it blew my mind.
That’s what got me out of retirement," Wendschuh recounts. He then enlisted Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros Games VP and now head of the Journey to the Savage Planet studio Raccoon Logic, as a strategic advisor, and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was funding—an especially daunting task given the broader industry downturn that began in 2023.
The studio’s early pitches generated enthusiasm, but investors were cautious. After partnering with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, they renewed their outreach in 2024 and ultimately closed a seed round with Krafton and Lifelike Capital. Wendschuh notes that the CAA connection, which also represents titles like 007: First Light, proved instrumental, as did the credibility added by veterans such as Schneider and Chartrand.
Today, Wolf Haus operates with just 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team ethos was intentional: "We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative core, and to feel ownership over a game that truly reflects a specific group of people." To achieve this with limited manpower, the studio invested heavily in internal tool development from day one. "Any system in the game has to be scalable and debuggable by a single developer.
We built a toolkit that grows with the project so the open‑world map doesn’t collapse under its own weight," Dietsch explains. This tool‑first approach consumes a significant portion of the first year, but it also lays a reusable foundation for future projects.
The financing structure also supports this methodology. Both Krafton and Lifelike hold equity, and the capital they provided has been used to self‑fund the game’s development.
While a modest amount of project finance is now earmarked for marketing, the core development budget remains entirely covered by the equity partners. "Equity investors care about enterprise value, so they encourage us to build robust tools.
It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a tiny team to produce a game of this scale," Wendschuh says. In an era where many studios tout generative AI to accelerate asset creation, Wolf Haus deliberately avoids it for core creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to replace the creative process would defeat why we get up every morning," Dietsch asserts. Wendschuh adds that the studio only uses AI for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting, not for any artistic or design decisions.
Interestingly, even Krafton—publicly positioning itself as an "AI‑first" company—required assurance that Wolf Haus would not rely on generative AI for its creative pipeline. This mirrors a broader industry conversation about AI’s impact on jobs for voice actors, artists, and other creatives. Indeed, the six‑kilometer‑square map in Join Us is handcrafted, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by real actors—no synthetic voices. This commitment to handcrafted content is a point of pride for the team, especially given their indie status.
Dietsch also reflects on the contrast between filmmaking and game development. Film production can take years from script to screen, with numerous gatekeepers and a reliance on star power to secure financing.
Game development, by contrast, allows a concept to be prototyped in a morning, tested in an engine, and iterated upon almost instantly. "The immediacy of games is thrilling—you have an idea, you plug it in, you see it live," he says.
Wendschuh echoes this, noting that film projects are heavily front‑loaded with pre‑production hurdles, whereas games have fewer gatekeepers and can succeed without A‑list talent. Both founders trace their passion back to childhood. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games—it came down to a coin toss and whether I got a camera for Christmas," Dietsch smiles.
He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, laying the groundwork for a career that now straddles both mediums. Ultimately, whether on a set or in a virtual world, the goal remains the same: to craft an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience.