The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with an ominous image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the final cut, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—was the infamous snake‑gun. "One of the team members’ kids suggested, ‘What if there’s a snake gun?’" Dietsch recalls.
"We have a rapid‑prototyping tool that lets us scale a weapon in minutes, so I whipped up a snake‑shooting gun in about half an hour. The kid was blown away, and the weapon stayed in the game." That anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire.
It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first philosophy, which has allowed a relatively tiny crew to produce a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, sums it up: "We set out to be disruptors. We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve people can do this.’ Most people laughed.
The team’s confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where small budgets and lean crews are the norm. "We’re used to punching well above our weight," Abbott says.
After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took a stake in Wolf Haus. Wolf Haus’s founders are steeped in Hollywood history. 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 venture.
Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s experiments in Unreal Engine. "Unreal is free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt blocked from actually creating one," he explains. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually gravitated toward a doomsday cult concept that married survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
The first proof‑of‑concept was a rough prototype that Dietsch showed to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s, providing writing for 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 firm Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million.
After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑hillroommate Michael Abbott lured him back into development. Wendschuh was impressed by Dietsch’s demo and agreed to join. Wendschuh recruited Reid Schneider—former Warner Bros. Games VP and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet—as a strategic advisor, and brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With the core leadership in place, the next hurdle was financing, which proved difficult amid a market downturn in 2023. Initial pitches generated interest but no commitments. The studio eventually partnered with CAA in Los Angeles, refined their pitch, and secured seed funding from Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024. The involvement of CAA—who also represent titles like 007: First Light—along with seasoned veterans Schneider and Chartrand, was instrumental in breaking through the funding freeze.
"My agent Derek Douglas had represented me for twelve years in games and previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris," Wendschuh notes. Despite the high ambitions of Join Us, the development team remains remarkably small: thirteen full‑time staff members.
Dietsch emphasizes that the studio deliberately kept the headcount low to preserve a collaborative atmosphere where every voice matters and everyone can directly influence the creative direction. To make a massive open‑world game feasible with such a lean crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset.
"Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch says. "We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a six‑kilometre square map without the project collapsing under its own weight." The funding structure further supports this tool‑centric approach. Krafton and Lifelike’s equity investment has essentially self‑funded the development, allowing the studio to allocate resources to tool creation rather than external pressures. "Equity partners are motivated to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they back our tool‑building ethos," Wendschuh explains.
"When we hit a problem we can’t solve, we simply build a tool to address it. It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a small team to deliver a game of this scale." When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—the team is unequivocal: they do not use it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential," Dietsch says.
"We have a few AI subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management, but nothing that influences design, art, or writing." Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, actually required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline. This stance mirrors that of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly denied using AI for its projects.
Wendschuh stresses that the studio respects creative professionals and wants to protect jobs for voice actors and artists. All 15,000 voice lines in Join Us were recorded by human talent, and the entire six‑kilometre map was handcrafted. Dietsch reflects on the contrast between filmmaking and game development. In film, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and studio greenlights.
In games, an inspiration can be prototyped the same morning and tested instantly in the engine, offering a immediacy he finds exhilarating. Wendschuh adds that movies are front‑loaded with high‑cost pre‑production, while games have fewer gatekeepers, making it easier for a small indie team to reach a wide audience without A‑list stars or directors. Both mediums, however, share a common creative impulse: storytelling and immersion.
"When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games—it boiled down to a coin toss and whether I got a camera for Christmas," Dietsch muses. "I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always loved both.
Whether you’re crafting a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging the audience. That core goal never changes."