The buzz around Join Us began when its trailer lit up the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers zip around on pigs, wield machine guns, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake‑gun, a weapon that Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—attributes to a spontaneous idea from a team member’s child. “His son asked, ‘What would a snake gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool, so in about thirty minutes I built a gun that actually fires snakes. He was blown away, and the weapon stayed in the game,” Dietsch recalls.
That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build 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. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up the ambition: “We set out to be disruptors.
We told everyone we could deliver a AAA‑level experience with just twelve people. Most people thought we were crazy.” The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets. “We come from indie film,” Abbott explains, “so we’re used to punching far above our weight.” After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the studio. 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, a production company originally founded by Chris Roberts before his shift to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. “I discovered Unreal was free to download and started tinkering after watching YouTube tutorials,” he says. Although he had no formal training, he managed to create a few modest games before deciding to tackle something larger.
The seed of the project was a fascination with a doomsday‑cult scenario that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema—a hybrid that could serve as a unique intellectual property bridging his love of movies and games. He built a proof‑of‑concept prototype, assuming he would eventually hit a technical wall. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter took it to Dooma, a partner studio that helped refine the concept. 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, 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 (about $330 million USD). After selling his cannabis business, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire.
Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, an unexpected call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into development. “I watched the demo Joe sent me and it blew my mind. It convinced me to come out of retirement,” Wendschuh says. He then introduced Reid Schneider—formerly a vice president at Warner Bros.
Games and now head of Raccoon Logic—to serve as a strategic advisor. Schneider recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as Wolf Haus’s chief technology officer. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing, which proved difficult during an industry downturn that began in 2023. The studio pitched relentlessly, eventually enlisting the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to represent them.
“CAA’s connections, plus the credibility of veterans like Schneider and Chartrand, opened doors,” notes Dietsch. The seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton finally arrived in 2024, allowing the studio to self‑fund the game’s development.
Wolf Haus deliberately kept its staff lean—13 full‑time employees at the time of writing—to preserve a collaborative atmosphere where every voice matters. “We wanted a small‑team culture where everyone can touch the creative side and feel ownership,” Dietsch explains. To make such an ambitious open‑world possible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on. “Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” says Dietsch.
The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and building the internal tools that would later support a sprawling map without collapsing under its own weight. The equity investors, Krafton and Lifelike, gave the studio the runway needed to perfect these tools. “The game is essentially self‑funded by the equity we received,” Wendschuh clarifies. “We’re now adding a modest amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development costs have been covered by our investors.” This model aligns the investors’ interests with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the team to keep building reusable tools even when they slow immediate progress.
When asked about the role of generative AI—a hot topic in the industry—both Dietsch and Wendschuh were unequivocal: the studio does not rely on AI for creative work. “We believe a human touch is essential.
Using AI to generate content would defeat the purpose of why we love making games,” Dietsch says. Wendschuh adds that the only AI tools they use are mundane productivity aids for scheduling and email. Interestingly, Krafton, which has publicly positioned itself as an “AI‑first” company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline as a condition of their investment. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio.
The six‑kilometre‑square map of Join Us was built by hand, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—a point the team emphasizes as a badge of authenticity. “We wanted to prove that a tiny indie can still produce a fully human‑driven experience,” says Dietsch. Transitioning from film to games also gave Dietsch a fresh sense of immediacy. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring countless approvals before a camera rolls.
In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed directly into the engine, and instantly visualized. “That instant feedback loop is exhilarating,” he notes. Wendschuh points out that while filmmaking is heavily front‑loaded—requiring high‑profile talent to secure financing—game development has fewer gatekeepers.
“Anyone can make a game with a modest budget and distribute it worldwide without needing an A‑list star,” he says. This democratization, however, does not diminish the artistic ambition; both mediums aim to deliver compelling stories and immersive experiences. Reflecting on his childhood, Dietsch says his passion for both movies and games was sparked by a coin toss and a Christmas camera. He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, laying the foundation for a career that now blends narrative storytelling with interactive design.
“Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re creating an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. The tools change, but the creative impulse stays the same.”