You may remember seeing the Join Us trailer during the Xbox Showcase in June. The clip introduced a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator, featuring robed followers riding pigs, brandishing machine guns, and culminating in a shot of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake‑gun, a detail that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, proudly recounts.
"One of the team members’ kids came up with the idea and asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’ We had a modular weapon system, so in about thirty minutes I built a gun that actually fires snakes. The kid was blown away, and the weapon stayed in the game," Dietsch explains. This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult.
The development philosophy behind the title is equally unconventional. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, says the studio set out to be “disruptors.” "We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve talented people can pull this off.’ Most people laughed and called us naive," Abbott recalls. Their confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on shoestring budgets, a skill honed in the indie‑film world where they learned to “punch above their weight.” After an arduous 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—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 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 always loved games but felt blocked by the high entry barrier to actually create something," he says.
He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually gravitated toward a doomsday‑cult concept that fused his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. The result was a proof‑of‑concept demo that he shared with Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, a partner studio. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, entered the video‑game arena after a career producing and writing for film. 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, most notably the cannabis‑formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After cashing out, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a chance call from his old Hollywood‑hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the industry. "When I saw Joe’s demo it blew my mind and convinced me to come out of retirement," Wendschuh says.
Through Wendschuh’s network, the studio recruited Reid Schneider—a former Warner Bros. Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic, the creators of Journey to the Savage Planet—as a strategic advisor, and he brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With a solid leadership team in place, the next hurdle was financing, which proved difficult amid a market downturn in 2023. The studio began pitching that summer, receiving polite interest but also skepticism. After partnering with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and re‑pitching in 2024, they finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—whose roster includes titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of veteran advisors for smoothing the path.
Despite the high‑profile backing, Wolf Haus kept its development crew deliberately small: thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the limited headcount was a conscious design choice. "We wanted a team where everyone has a voice, everyone can touch the creative process, and the final product feels like it came from a tight‑knit group," he explains.
To make such an ambitious open‑world game feasible with few hands, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," says Dietsch. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and constructing the internal tools that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight. The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools.
"Krafton and Lifelike’s investment has essentially self‑funded the game," Wendschuh notes. While a modest amount of project finance is now being allocated for marketing, the core development budget remains fully covered by the equity partners.
This arrangement aligns investor incentives with the studio’s ethos of building reusable tools, even if it occasionally slows feature delivery. When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—both Dietsch and Wendschuh are unequivocal: they do not rely on AI for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Using an AI to generate assets would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," Dietsch says.
Wendschuh adds that the studio only uses AI for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting, not for art, design, or narrative. Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, actually insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline.
This mirrors a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio, which publicly denied using AI for its projects. Both companies appear to recognize the potential backlash from artists, voice actors, and other creatives whose jobs could be threatened by AI‑generated content. Indeed, Join Us’s six‑kilometre‑square map is handcrafted, and its roughly 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—a point the team stresses as a badge of pride. "Even as a tiny indie, we felt it was crucial to keep the human element alive," Dietsch affirms.
Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and game creation. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring scripts, greenlights, and massive coordination before a director ever sees a set. In games, however, an idea can be prototyped in a morning, dropped into the engine, and instantly visualised.
This immediacy fuels his enthusiasm. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense pre‑production phases that hinge on securing a handful of high‑profile talent to obtain studio approval. While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without marquee names or distribution is rare.
By contrast, the video‑game landscape has fewer gatekeepers, making it easier for small teams to achieve commercial success without A‑list actors or directors. Both founders agree that the core creative impulse—telling a story, delivering an experience, and engaging an audience—remains the same across mediums. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games; it was a coin toss that landed on a camera for Christmas," Dietsch recalls. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, a skill that later merged with his filmmaking passion.
Whether through film or interactive media, the goal is to craft compelling narratives that resonate with players and viewers alike.