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 teaser, robed followers zip around on pigs, wielding machine guns, before the screen fades to a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake gun, a feature that Joe Dietsch, the studio’s CEO and creative director, says was born out of a simple request from a team member’s child.
"His son asked, ‘Can we have a snake‑shooting gun?’" Dietsch recalls. "We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new weapon in about thirty minutes, so I built a gun that fires snakes on the spot.
The kid went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the game." This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title where players can recruit AI followers or friends into a 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates why Wolf Haus leans heavily on custom technology: the studio believes that a well‑crafted toolset lets a tiny team deliver a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require dozens of developers. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up the philosophy: "We set out to be disruptors. Everyone told us a twelve‑person crew couldn’t build a game of this scope, but we’d already proven we could punch far above our weight in indie film.
So we kept pushing." The studio’s journey to funding was anything but smooth. After 80 pitches, they finally secured equity from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the fledgling studio. 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 renowned makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before his move to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us began as a curiosity project in Unreal Engine.
"I discovered Unreal was free to download and thought, ‘Why not give it a try?’" Dietsch explains. With only YouTube tutorials as guidance, he built a few tiny prototypes before deciding to tackle something bigger: a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
He created a proof‑of‑concept demo, ran into technical roadblocks, and showed the result to Abbott, who then introduced the concept to Dooma. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, started his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing writing services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he built several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for 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 development. Impressed by Dietsch’s demo, Wendschuh recruited former Warner Bros. Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor and hired Ubisoft veteran Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand as chief technology officer.
Funding proved challenging amid an industry downturn. The team began pitching in summer 2023, faced repeated rejections, and eventually partnered with CAA in Los Angeles. Their persistence paid off in 2024 when Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed a seed round.
Wendschuh credits the CAA connection and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors. Despite the high‑profile backing, the studio remains lean: only 13 full‑time staff members. "We wanted a small‑team culture where everyone has a voice and can touch every part of the creative process," says Dietsch. To keep the project scalable, the studio invested heavily in internal tools from day one.
"Any system we build must be debuggable and extensible by a single person," he notes. This tooling focus consumed much of the first development year, allowing the team to iterate on gameplay ideas while simultaneously constructing the pipelines that would sustain a massive open world. The equity financing model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect those tools.
Krafton and Lifelike’s investment was used to self‑fund the game’s development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing later on. "Our investors care about enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," Wendschuh explains.
"When we hit a problem we can’t solve, we build a tool for it. It may slow us down short‑term, but it enables a tiny team to deliver a AAA‑level experience." When asked about generative AI, the studio’s stance is clear: none of the creative work relies on AI. "We believe a human touch is essential," says Dietsch. "We use AI only for mundane tasks like calendar management, never for art, design, or narrative." Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, also insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in core development, mirroring similar statements from its subsidiary Neon Giant.
The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by real actors, not synthetic voices. This dedication to authenticity reflects the studio’s broader philosophy of preserving creative jobs and maintaining artistic integrity. Dietsch finds the immediacy of game development far more rewarding than film.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed in the engine, and instantly visualised. "You can see your idea come to life the same day," he says, noting that the lower barriers to entry in games make it easier for small, passionate teams to succeed without A‑list names.
Both mediums, however, share a common goal: delivering an experience that tells a story and engages an audience. Dietsch reflects on his childhood ambition to create either movies or games, noting that a simple coin toss and a Christmas camera set him on this dual path. Whether through film or interactive entertainment, the core creative impulse remains the same—crafting narratives that resonate and captivate.