The trailer for Join Us made a splash at the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation where robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash machine‑gun fire, and conclude with a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like tentacle vision. What didn’t appear in that cut was the infamous snake‑gun, a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was inspired by a child’s off‑hand suggestion. "One of the team members’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new firearm in about thirty minutes, so I built a gun that actually fires snakes.
The kid went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay at the heart of Join Us, an open‑world survival title where players can recruit NPC followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a relatively tiny group to produce a high‑fidelity experience. "We set out to be disruptors," says Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer.
"We told ourselves we could achieve what usually requires a hundred‑person studio with just twelve people. Everyone thought we were dreaming." The team’s confidence stems from a history of doing big things on lean budgets. Coming from indie‑film backgrounds, they’re accustomed to punching well above their weight.
After 80 pitch meetings, they finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood credentials run deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who 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 started by Chris Roberts before his Star Citizen venture.
Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s tinkering with Unreal Engine.
"I discovered Unreal was free to download and started experimenting with YouTube tutorials," he explains. Though he had never built a game before, he managed a few small prototypes before committing to a larger vision.
The concept— a doomsday cult simulator that fuses survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—kept resurfacing because it merged his passions for both film and gaming into a single intellectual property. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming he would eventually hit a technical wall.
When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter took it to Dooma, a partner that helped shape the project’s direction. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer 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 work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After selling, he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back: "Joe’s demo blew my mind and convinced me to come out of retirement." Wendschuh introduced the project to Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games vice president now heading Raccoon Logic, the makers of Journey to the Savage Planet.
Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With the core team in place, the next hurdle was financing—a challenge made tougher by the industry downturn of 2023. The studio began pitching in the summer of that year, receiving positive reactions but facing a cautious market. They eventually enlisted CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Los Angeles, re‑approached investors in 2024, and closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Wendschuh credits the CAA connection and veteran advisors for opening doors. "Our agent Derek Douglas had represented me for twelve years and previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris.
That pedigree helped us get noticed." Despite the high‑profile backing, Join Us is being built by just 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team ethos is intentional: everyone has a say, everyone touches the creative process, and the final product feels like a collective labor of love rather than a corporate assembly line. To make such an ambitious open‑world title feasible for a tiny crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset.
"Any system we create must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. The first year of development was split between designing gameplay concepts and building the internal tools that would later allow those concepts to scale across a six‑kilometre‑square map without the project collapsing under its own weight.
The equity funding model gave the studio the runway to perfect these tools. "Krafton and Lifelike’s investment essentially self‑funded the game," says Wendschuh. "We’re now only seeking modest project finance for marketing. The investors’ equity stake aligns their interests with ours, encouraging us to keep building robust tools even if it slows short‑term development." When asked about the role of generative AI—a hot topic in game development—Dietsch gives a clear answer: none.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Hand‑crafting the experience is why we get up in the morning," he says. Wendschuh adds that while the team uses AI for mundane tasks like calendar management, they deliberately avoid it for any creative work. Even Krafton, which has branded itself an "AI‑first" company, discouraged Wolf Haus from employing generative AI in the creative pipeline.
This mirrors the stance of Krafton‑owned Neon Giant, which publicly distanced itself from the parent’s AI pivot. The studio’s commitment to human‑generated content extends to the game’s assets.
The entire six‑kilometre‑square world is hand‑built, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by real actors—a point the team feels proud of, especially given their indie status. Dietsch notes a key advantage of game development over film: immediacy. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and lengthy production schedules.
In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and instantly visualised. This rapid feedback loop fuels the team’s creativity. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, high‑stakes set work and a reliance on securing a few high‑profile talent to green‑light a project.
While anyone can shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. Game development, however, has far fewer gatekeepers. "You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game," he says, highlighting the democratising potential of the medium.
Both founders reflect on their childhood fascination with storytelling, whether through movies or interactive experiences. "When I was six, I wanted to make either games or movies; a coin toss and a Christmas camera decided the path," Dietsch recalls.
He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, a skill that later merged with his love of cinema. "Whether you’re crafting a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. The core creative impulse is the same."