The Join Us trailer made a splash during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulation where robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash machine‑gun fire, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a child’s imagination. According to Dietsch, a team member’s son asked, “What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?” Thanks to a rapid‑prototyping tool the studio had built, Dietsch was able to conjure a functional snake‑gun in roughly thirty minutes, delighting the kid and cementing the weapon’s place in the final product. That anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or other players in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult.
It also illustrates Wolf Haus’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a small team to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require dozens of developers. Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed up the ambition: “We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑ish experience with just twelve people.
Most people thought we were crazy.” The founders’ confidence stems from a history of punching well above their weight. Coming from indie film backgrounds, they are accustomed to achieving cinematic results on shoestring budgets. After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now own stakes in the studio.
The team’s 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 company founded by Chris Roberts before his Star Citizen days. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. “I discovered Unreal was free to download and started tinkering after watching YouTube tutorials,” he recalls. Though he had no formal game‑dev experience, he managed to create a few modest prototypes before deciding to chase a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo and showed it to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, the studio’s early backer. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, began his career as a producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, which supplied narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, 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 the industry. Impressed by Dietsch’s demo, Wendschuh recruited former Warner Bros.
Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor and hired Ubisoft Montreal veteran Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand as chief technology officer. Securing financing proved challenging amid a market downturn in 2023‑24. After initial outreach, Wolf Haus enlisted CAA (Creative Artists Agency) as representation and resumed pitching in 2024, eventually closing a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—whose roster includes titles like 007: First Light—as instrumental, along with the credibility added by veterans Schneider and Chartrand. Despite the high ambitions, the studio has remained lean, employing just 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional: “We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership over the final product.” To make such a scope feasible, the team invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset. “Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” Dietsch explains.
The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and constructing the underlying toolset, a strategy that also positions Wolf Haus to reuse these tools for future projects. The equity funding model gave the studio the runway to perfect these tools without external pressure. “Krafton and Lifelike’s investment funds the entire development; we’re essentially self‑funded,” says Wendschuh.
This arrangement aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the team to keep building internal solutions even if they temporarily slow progress. When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not employ it for creative work. “We believe a human touch is essential to game making,” Dietsch states.
Wendschuh adds that AI tools are only used for mundane tasks like calendar management, not for art, design, or writing. 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 handcrafted content is evident in the game’s scale: a six‑kilometre‑square map built entirely by hand and 15,000 voice lines recorded by real actors. Dietsch argues that this human‑centric approach differentiates Join Us from AI‑generated experiences and preserves jobs for voice talent and artists.
Transitioning from film to games has given Dietsch a sense of immediacy he never had on a movie set. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring countless approvals before a director ever sees it on set. In game development, however, an idea can be prototyped in a matter of hours, allowing creators to iterate instantly.
Wendschuh notes that while film production is heavily front‑loaded—requiring high‑profile talent to secure greenlights—game development faces fewer gatekeepers. “You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to get a game funded; the barriers are lower, which makes the odds of success higher for indie teams,” he observes. Both mediums, though, share a core purpose: delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience.
Dietsch reflects on his childhood, recalling that a coin toss between a camera and a game console set his path, and that his early programming on a TI‑83 calculator cemented his love for interactive storytelling. Whether through film or interactive media, his goal remains the same—to craft compelling narratives that resonate with players and viewers alike.