You may recall seeing the Join Us trailer during the Xbox Showcase in June, where a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator was unveiled. The clip showed robed followers riding pigs, wielding machine guns, and culminated in a shot of massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make it onto the screen was the infamous snake gun, a feature that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, proudly attributes to a spontaneous idea from a team member’s child. "One of the kids on the team’s family suggested a snake‑shooter," Dietsch recounts.
"We had a rapid‑prototyping tool for weapons, so within about thirty minutes I built a gun that launches snakes. The kid went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the final build." That anecdote perfectly captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first philosophy, which has enabled a small team to produce a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed it up succinctly: "We wanted to be disruptors." "We kept telling people, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve people can handle everything.’ Everyone thought we were delusional," Abbott says. "But we’ve spent our careers in indie film, constantly punching far above our weight. After eighty pitches, we finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus." The founding trio brings deep Hollywood pedigree to the table. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson and fellow co‑founder—co‑writing and co‑directing 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 venture. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us originated from Dietsch’s experimentation in Unreal Engine. "Unreal is free to download, and I’d always loved games, but the barrier to creating something felt huge," he explains. "I started learning from YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually decided to aim bigger." Even without a formal background in game development, Dietsch managed to craft several small titles before committing to a more ambitious concept: a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, anticipating that at some point the technology would hit a wall.
When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter took it to Dooma, a partner who helped push the project forward. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, began his career as a producer and screenwriter in film before transitioning to games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative work for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
Later, he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire and enjoy a quiet life.
Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, a call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry. "I was looking at the game Joe had built, and it completely blew my mind. It convinced me to come out of retirement," Wendschuh says. He then introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros.
Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, who became a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing—a daunting task amid a market downturn. The studio began pitching in summer 2023, receiving positive reactions but facing a skeptical investment climate. After initial outreach, Wolf Haus partnered with CAA in Los Angeles, refined its pitch, and returned to investors in 2024.
The effort paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed a seed round, providing the capital needed to continue development. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for the successful fundraising.
"My agent Derek Douglas, who represented me during my twelve‑year game‑making stint, also heads the video‑game department at William Morris," he notes. Despite the heavyweight backing, Join Us remains a lean operation with just thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model fosters a collaborative environment where every voice matters and each person can influence the creative direction. To make an ambitious open‑world title feasible with such limited manpower, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling early in development.
"If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single developer," Dietsch explains. "We built a robust toolkit so that as features proliferate across the map, the project doesn’t collapse under its own weight.
A significant portion of the first year was spent simultaneously ideating gameplay and engineering the tools that would make those ideas possible, both for Join Us and future projects." The equity‑funding model gave the studio the runway to perfect these tools. "Krafton and Lifelike’s investments have essentially self‑funded the game," Wendschuh says. "We’re now using a modest amount of project finance for marketing, but development has been fully covered by our equity partners." One advantage of equity backing is that investors share the studio’s goal of increasing enterprise value, encouraging the team to build extensive tooling rather than cutting corners.
"Whenever we encounter a problem we can’t solve, we create a tool to address it," Dietsch adds. "It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a tiny team to deliver a game of this scope." In an industry where tiny‑team development often triggers discussions about generative AI, Wolf Haus deliberately steers clear of that technology.
"We don’t use generative AI for any creative work," Dietsch states. "Our process relies on human craftsmanship; outsourcing that to an algorithm would defeat the purpose of why we love making games." Wendschuh concedes that the studio uses AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, but insists it never touches the artistic side. Interestingly, Krafton—an "AI‑first" company—insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in its creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio. Both Wendschuh and Dietsch argue that AI threatens jobs for voice actors and artists, a risk they refuse to take.
The six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is handcrafted, and the game’s 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human performers, a point the team considers non‑negotiable even for an indie title. Dietsch reflects on the immediacy of game development compared with film. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals and large crews before any footage is shot.
In games, an inspiration can be prototyped within hours, allowing creators to see their vision instantly in the engine. This rapid feedback loop energizes him.
Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, high‑stakes set work and the constant need to secure A‑list talent to greenlight a project. While anyone can technically shoot a movie with a backyard camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. By contrast, the game industry has fewer gatekeepers; a small team can launch a successful title without famous actors or directors.
Both founders agree that the core creative drive—telling stories and delivering experiences—remains the same across mediums. Dietsch recalls his childhood desire to make either movies or games, a path that ultimately hinged on a coin toss and a Christmas camera.
He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, blending his love for both disciplines. "Whether it’s film or a game, you’re crafting an experience, a narrative, an engagement.
The medium changes, but the intention stays constant."