You may remember seeing the Join Us trailer during the Xbox Showcase in June. The clip introduced a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers charge on pigs, unleash machine‑gun fire, and the finale hints at colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the cut was the infamous snake gun, a feature that Joe Dietsch, CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a child’s imagination.
"One of the team members’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool, so in about thirty minutes I built a weapon that fires serpents. He was thrilled, and the gun stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls. This anecdote captures the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay Join Us promises: an open‑world survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire. The quirky design philosophy mirrors the studio’s broader technical strategy.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s COO, explains that the team set out to be “disruptors.” "We told everyone we could deliver a AAA‑quality experience with just twelve people. Most people laughed, saying it was impossible," he says. Their confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on shoestring budgets in the indie film world.
"We grew up making indie movies, constantly punching above our weight," Abbott adds. After roughly eighty pitch meetings, the studio finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital. Both investors took a stake in Wolf Haus, allowing the team to retain creative control while accessing the capital needed for a high‑fidelity title. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who later co‑founded Wolf Haus and 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 shift to Star Citizen.
Abbott later produced films 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 my whole life, but the barrier to actually create something felt huge.
I started learning from YouTube tutorials and built a few tiny prototypes," he explains. Though he had no formal game‑dev background, Dietsch managed to ship a couple of small titles before deciding to tackle something larger—a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept prototype, expecting to hit a technical wall at some point.
When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter immediately took it to Dooma, a partner studio that helped refine the vision. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games in the early 2000s, contributing writing to titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. He later founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis‑formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million.
Wendschuh retired to a remote Canadian island, only to be pulled back into development when his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate Michael Abbott called. "He sent me a video of Joe’s game, and it blew my mind. I came out of retirement to help," Wendschuh says. He introduced Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros.
Games and now head of 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 in place, the next hurdle was financing during a market downturn. Pitching began in summer 2023, but the industry was contracting.
After initial outreach, Wolf Haus signed with CAA in Los Angeles, re‑engaged in 2024, and finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits CAA’s representation—alongside seasoned game veterans Schneider and Chartrand—for opening doors. Despite the high ambitions, Join Us is being built by only 13 full‑time staff members.
Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model is intentional: "We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership of the final product." To make such a scope feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person. We built a robust toolkit so that as features proliferate across the open world, the project doesn’t collapse under its own weight," he explains. The first year of development was therefore split between designing gameplay and constructing the underlying tools that would support future projects.
The equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑fund the entire development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. "Our investors benefit from the studio’s enterprise value, so they encourage us to build extensive tools. When we encounter a problem we can’t solve, we simply create a tool to address it.
It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a tiny team to deliver a large‑scale experience," says Wendschuh. When asked about generative AI, Dietsch is unequivocal: the studio does not employ it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Using AI to generate assets would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," he says. Wendschuh adds that the only AI they use is for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton—publicly positioning itself as an "AI‑first" company—specifically required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The commitment to hand‑crafted content extends to the game’s world and audio.
The six‑kilometer‑square map is entirely built by hand, and all 15,000 voice lines are recorded by human actors, a point the team views as non‑negotiable even for an indie title. Dietsch reflects on the contrast between film and games. In cinema, an idea can take years to reach production, requiring countless approvals and high‑profile talent.
In games, an inspiration can be prototyped within hours, allowing immediate iteration. Wendschuh notes that film production is front‑loaded with intense, high‑stakes set work, whereas games have fewer gatekeepers and lower barriers to entry—anyone can develop a game without needing an A‑list director or star. Both mediums, however, share a core creative drive: storytelling and delivering experiences. "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. I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always loved both. Ultimately, whether you’re crafting a film or a game, you’re trying to tell a story and engage an audience," Dietsch concludes.