You may remember seeing the Join Us trailer during the Xbox Showcase in June, where a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator was on display. The clip showed robed cultists riding pigs, firing machine guns, and culminated in a shot of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles.
What didn’t make it onto the screen was the infamous snake gun, a feature that CEO and creative director Joe Dietsch of Wolf Haus Games proudly points to. "One of the team members’ kids suggested a snake‑gun," Dietsch recounts.
"They asked, ‘What if there was a gun that shot snakes?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool, so within about thirty minutes I built one. The kid was blown away, and we kept it in the final build." That anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to a 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates the studio’s tech‑first philosophy, which has allowed a small group of developers to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff.
"We set out to be disruptors," says Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer. "We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve talented people can do it.’ Most people laughed and called it impossible.
But we’ve spent our careers punching far above our weight in indie film, so we knew how to stretch limited resources. After 80 pitches, we finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital." The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, the son of Mel Gibson and another Wolf Haus co‑founder.
Together they 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, a 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.
Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt the barrier to creating something was huge," he explains.
"I started learning from YouTube tutorials and built a few tiny prototypes." Even without prior development experience, Dietsch managed to finish a couple of small games before deciding to tackle something larger. The seed of Join Us was a “doomsday cult simulator” that blended his love for survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—a hybrid IP that married his film sensibilities with interactive design. He built a proof‑of‑concept, expecting to hit a technical wall at some point.
When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter took it to Dooma, a production partner. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had begun his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s, providing writing services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. In the 2010s he founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis‑formulation company Ebbu, which later sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, planning a quiet retirement.
Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, an unexpected call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back. "He told me a friend had made a video game and wanted me to see it. I watched Joe’s demo, it blew my mind, and I came 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, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet.
Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing—a daunting task during the industry downturn of 2023‑24. The studio began pitching in the summer of 2023, receiving positive reactions but facing a tight market. After initial outreach, they signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, refined their pitch, and returned to investors in 2024.
Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton provided a seed round. Wendschuh credits CAA’s representation—also handling titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of seasoned veterans Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors.
"Derek Douglas, our agent at CAA, was also my agent when I spent twelve years making games and previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris," he notes. Despite the pedigree, Join Us is being built by just 13 full‑time staff members. "We entered the project with a clear sense of scope and a desire to keep the team small, so everyone has a voice and can touch the creative process," says Dietsch. To make such an ambitious open‑world game feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on.
"Every system must be scalable and debuggable by a single person. We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a massive map without the project collapsing under its own weight. A large portion of the first year was spent ideating the game while simultaneously creating the tools that would enable it." The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools.
"Krafton and Lifelike are equity partners; their investment funds the development directly. We’re now adding a modest amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development is fully self‑funded through their equity," explains Wendschuh. "Because our investors share our goal of increasing studio enterprise value, they support our tool‑building ethos, even if it slows short‑term progress. It’s the trade‑off that lets a tiny team achieve something of this scale." When asked about the role of generative AI, Dietsch is unequivocal: the studio does not use it for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Turning development over to an AI would defeat why we get up every morning." Wendschuh adds, "We have a few AI subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, but nothing that touches the creative side." Interestingly, Krafton—publicly branding itself as an ‘AI‑first’ company—insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline.
"They wanted assurance we weren’t relying on AI to make the game," says Wendschuh, echoing a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio. Both Wendschuh and Dietsch stress the importance of preserving jobs for voice actors and artists. The six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is entirely handcrafted, and the game’s 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human talent. "That mattered to us, even as a small indie," Dietsch affirms.
Dietsch also reflects on the immediacy of game development compared with film. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring scripts, greenlights, and massive coordination. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and instantly visualised.
"That instant feedback loop is exhilarating," he says. Wendschuh points out that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense set work and the need to secure high‑profile talent to obtain studio backing. While anyone can technically shoot a movie with a backyard camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. By contrast, games face fewer gatekeepers; a compelling experience can reach audiences without A‑list names.
"You don’t need a famous actor or director to succeed in games," he notes. Both founders agree that the core creative drive is the same across mediums: to craft an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience.
"When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It boiled down to a coin toss and maybe getting a camera for Christmas.
I learned to program on a TI‑83, so I’ve always loved both. Whether it’s film or a game, the goal is to deliver an immersive narrative," Dietsch concludes.