The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulation. In the clip, robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like tangle of tentacles. What viewers didn’t see was the infamous snake‑gun, a weapon that, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—was born from a child’s off‑hand question. "One of our team members’ sons asked, ‘What would a snake gun look like?’" Dietsch recalls.
"Because we had a modular gun system, I could spin up a prototype in about thirty minutes. The kid went wild, and the weapon made it into the final build." This anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult.
It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a high‑fidelity, large‑scale experience to be produced by a surprisingly small crew. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up the team’s philosophy: "We set out to be disruptors. Everyone told us a twelve‑person studio couldn’t deliver a game of this scope, but we knew from indie filmmaking that we could punch far above our weight." Their confidence wasn’t unfounded.
The founders had already survived on shoestring budgets, delivering feature films with limited resources. After 80 pitch meetings, they finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving the studio the financial runway needed to finish the title.
The Wolf Haus leadership team 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, a production outfit founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to the Star Citizen universe.
Abbott’s résumé also includes producing credits on movies 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 been a gamer for as long as I’d been a movie watcher," he says. "The barrier to actually creating something felt huge, so I started learning through YouTube tutorials and built a few tiny prototypes." Though he had no formal training, Dietsch managed to ship a couple of modest games before deciding to tackle something more ambitious: a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept, ran into technical roadblocks, and presented the demo to Abbott, who then introduced it to Dooma. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, entered the picture after a varied career that spanned film production, screenwriting, and video‑game narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
In the 2010s he founded several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million (about $330 million USD). After cashing out, he bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire.
Yet a sudden call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the industry. "I watched the early footage Joe had made and it blew my mind, so I came out of retirement," Wendschuh explains. He then recruited former Warner Bros. Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor and brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
Funding proved to be the next major hurdle. The team began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. Initial reactions were positive—"cool game," investors said—but securing capital was difficult.
After enlisting the representation of CAA in Los Angeles and refining their pitch throughout 2024, Wolf Haus finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh notes that CAA’s connections, along with the credibility of veterans like Schneider and Chartrand, were instrumental in gaining investor confidence. Despite the high‑profile backing, the studio remains intentionally lean: thirteen full‑time staff members.
"We entered the project with a clear understanding of scope and wanted to preserve a small‑team culture where everyone has a voice and contributes creatively," says Dietsch. To make such an ambitious title feasible with limited personnel, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and building the internal tools that would allow those ideas to scale across a massive open world without collapsing under their own complexity.
The equity model with Krafton and Lifelike also gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect these tools. "The funding is essentially self‑sustaining for the game," Wendschuh says. "We’re now only looking at project finance for marketing, but the core development has been covered by our investors, who share our goal of increasing the studio’s enterprise value." This alignment encourages the team to solve problems by building bespoke tools rather than outsourcing or cutting corners, even if it slows short‑term progress.
When asked about generative AI, the studio’s stance is unequivocal: they do not employ it for any creative aspect of development. "Our philosophy is that a game should retain a human touch," Dietsch states. "We might use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management, but not for designing assets, writing dialogue, or coding gameplay." Interestingly, Krafton—publicly positioning itself as an "AI‑first" company—explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant.
The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map of Join Us was built entirely by hand, and the title boasts roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors—an impressive feat for a studio of this size. "We wanted to ensure that even as an indie title, the experience felt authentic and human," Wendschuh emphasizes.
Dietsch reflects on the differences between filmmaking and game development, highlighting the immediacy of the latter. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent.
By contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours, allowing creators to see their vision in real time. "You can have an idea this morning, drop it into the engine, and immediately see it on screen," he says, describing the thrill that keeps him motivated. Wendschuh adds that while film production is heavily front‑loaded—requiring extensive pre‑production, star attachment, and studio green‑lights—games face far fewer gatekeepers. "Anyone can rent a camera and shoot a backyard movie, but without big names or distribution, success is rare.
In games, the barriers are lower; you don’t need an A‑list actor or director to reach an audience," he notes. Both founders agree that the core creative impulse remains the same across mediums: to craft an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games, and a coin toss decided the path. I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always blended both worlds," Dietsch reflects.
"Whether it’s film or a game, the goal is to deliver a compelling narrative and an immersive experience. That essence never changes."