The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation where robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and culminate in a nightmarish vision of Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the 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 was a snake gun?’ We had a modular weapon‑creation tool that let us prototype a new gun in about thirty minutes. I built a snake‑shooting weapon on the fly, and the kid went wild. It’s still in the final game," Dietsch recalls, laughing.
This anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox survival where players can recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style doomsday cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a tiny crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a far larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. Everyone told us a twelve‑person team couldn’t deliver a game of this scope.
We proved them wrong." The team’s confidence stems from a background in low‑budget, high‑impact indie filmmaking. "We come from indie cinema and we’re used to punching well above our weight," Abbott says. After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving Wolf Haus the financial runway to continue development.
The founders’ 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 he turned his attention to Star Citizen.
Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. This blend of cinematic experience and entrepreneurial spirit informs the studio’s narrative‑driven design philosophy.
Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments with Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a massive barrier to actually building something," he explains. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, created a few modest prototypes, and eventually settled on the concept of a doomsday cult simulator—a mash‑up of survival mechanics, grindhouse cinema aesthetics, and the kind of absurdist humor that bridges his film and gaming passions. The proof‑of‑concept was a rough but functional demo that Dietsch showed to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma.
Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously worked as a producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games in the early 2000s, contributing writing to titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Wendschuh later founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million.
After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry. He was immediately impressed by Dietsch’s demo and agreed to help secure additional expertise. Wendschuh recruited Reid Schneider—former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet—as a strategic advisor, and brought Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, on board as chief technology officer.
With this leadership core in place, the studio turned its attention to funding. Pitching began in the summer of 2023, a period marked by an industry downturn that made investors cautious. "People liked what we were building but it was a tough market," Dietsch says. The team eventually partnered with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for representation, which helped open doors to investors.
By 2024, they closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton, giving them the capital needed to continue development while retaining creative control. One of the most striking aspects of Join Us is how it’s being built by just thirteen full‑time staff members.
Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model is intentional: "We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel like the game is truly made by a tight‑knit group." To make such an ambitious open‑world title feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset. "Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch notes. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay features and building the internal tools that would allow those features to scale across a six‑kilometre‑square map without collapsing under their own weight.
The equity funding from Kraftor and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance the entire development cycle. "The investors are incentivized to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," explains Wendschuh. This approach sometimes slows short‑term progress but enables the team to solve problems in‑house rather than outsourcing or relying on third‑party shortcuts.
When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not use it for any creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential to game development," Dietsch says. "Turning the creative process over to an AI would defeat the purpose of why we get up each morning." Wendschuh adds that while they may use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management, none of it touches design, writing, or art. Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, echoing similar stances from other Krafton‑owned studios such as Neon Giant.
The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The entire six‑kilometre map is hand‑sculpted, and the 15,000 voice lines are performed by human actors rather than synthetic voices. "That was non‑negotiable for us, even as a small indie," says Dietsch.
The team views this dedication as a safeguard against the job‑displacing potential of AI, especially for voice actors and artists. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and game production.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and massive budgets before a director ever sees the final product. In games, a concept can be prototyped in a single morning, inserted into the engine, and instantly visualised.
This immediacy fuels the studio’s rapid iteration cycle and keeps the creative energy high. Wendschuh points out that the film industry remains heavily front‑loaded: securing a high‑profile director or star is often a prerequisite for green‑lighting a project. While anyone can technically shoot a movie with a consumer‑grade camera, breaking through without established names or distribution channels is rare. By contrast, the barriers to entry in game development are lower, allowing small teams to reach large audiences without A‑list talent.
"We don’t need a Hollywood star to sell a game," he says, "the medium itself is more accessible." Both founders agree that the core driver behind their work—whether film or games—is storytelling and creating an experience for the audience. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games; it boiled down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera," Dietsch reminisces. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, merging his love for both mediums early on.
"Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re delivering a story, an experience, an emotional journey. That fundamental goal hasn’t changed." In summary, Wolf Haus’s Join Us exemplifies how a small, Hollywood‑savvy team can leverage custom tools, strategic funding, and a steadfast commitment to human‑crafted content to produce a large‑scale, high‑quality game without relying on generative AI. Their journey illustrates that with the right blend of cinematic storytelling, technical ingenuity, and entrepreneurial grit, even a dozen‑person studio can disrupt the industry and deliver a title that feels both ambitious and authentically human.