The teaser for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers zip around on pigs, fire machine guns, and ultimately confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the trailer was the infamous snake‑gun, a quirky weapon that, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—originated from a child’s off‑hand suggestion.
"One of our team member’s son asked, ‘What if there was a snake gun?’" Dietsch recalls. "Because we had a modular weapon system, I could spin up a prototype in about thirty minutes.
The kid was thrilled, and the snake gun stayed in the final build." This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title that lets players 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 allowed a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a far larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors.
Everyone told us you needed a hundred people to pull this off; we insisted twelve would be enough." Their confidence stemmed from a background in indie filmmaking, where they learned to punch well above their budgetary weight. After a grueling 80‑pitch marathon, the team finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus. 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 veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production banner founded by Chris Roberts before his Star Citizen venture. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us sprouted from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt the barrier to creating one was huge," he explains.
He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. The concept served as a proof‑of‑concept that he presented to Abbott, who then introduced it to Dooma, the studio where the prototype received its first serious backing.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s 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 built several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million.
After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into development. Wendschuh was instantly impressed by Dietsch’s demo and agreed to join the effort. Through Wendschuh’s network, the studio recruited Reid Schneider—a former Warner Bros.
Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic—and Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With this core assembled, the next hurdle was financing, a task made tougher by a market downturn in mid‑2023. After initial outreach and a partnership with CAA (Creative Artists Agency), the team relaunched its pitch in 2024 and finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
The involvement of CAA, which also represents titles like 007: First Light, proved pivotal. "Derek Douglas, our agent at CAA, had represented me for twelve years and previously led the video‑game department at William Morris," Wendschuh notes. Their backing, combined with veteran advisors Schneider and Chartrand, gave the fledgling studio credibility despite its modest size. Today, Wolf Haus operates with just 13 full‑time staff members.
Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model isn’t a gimmick but a deliberate choice to keep creative voices close and ensure everyone can influence the product. To make a game of Join Us’s scope feasible with such a lean crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one.
"Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch says. "We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and constructing the tools that would let that gameplay survive on an open‑world map without collapsing under its own weight." The equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑fund development, reserving external capital primarily for marketing later on. "Our investors benefit when the studio’s enterprise value grows, so they encourage us to build robust tools," Wendschuh explains.
"When we hit a technical roadblock, we simply create a new tool to solve it. It may slow short‑term progress, but it empowers a tiny team to deliver a AAA‑level experience." When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not employ it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential in game development," Dietsch asserts.
"We might use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management, but never for design, art, or narrative." Even Krafton, which has branded itself as an "AI‑first" company, insisted Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline. This stance mirrors comments from Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly rejected the publisher’s AI pivot. Wendschuh adds, "We respect creative professionals and don’t want AI to replace voice actors or artists. The six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is handcrafted, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by real actors.
That authenticity mattered to us, even as an indie team." Dietsch finds the immediacy of game development liberating compared to film. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, subject to studio approvals and scheduling constraints.
In contrast, a concept can be prototyped in a morning, dropped into the engine, and instantly visualized. "You can see it, you can tweak it, and that instant feedback loop is exhilarating," he says.
Wendschuh points out that film production is heavily front‑loaded, requiring high‑profile talent and studio greenlights before any shooting begins. While anyone can shoot a backyard movie with a cheap camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. Game development, by contrast, has fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without A‑list actors or directors. "The barrier to entry is lower, and the odds of success are higher," 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. Dietsch reflects, "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games—it came down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera. I learned programming on a TI‑83, so the love for both has always been there.
Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience and a narrative, and that fundamental goal never changes."