The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers charge on pigs while firing machine guns, culminating in a shot of massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a child’s imagination.
According to Dietsch, a team member’s son asked, “Can there be a snake gun?” Thanks to an in‑house tool that lets the developers scale weapons in minutes, Dietsch was able to prototype a serpent‑shooting firearm in roughly half an hour. The result impressed the kid so much that the weapon stayed in the final build, exemplifying the sort of off‑the‑wall gameplay Join Us promises.
The game is an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. What makes this ambition especially striking is the studio’s lean development model. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, says the team set out to be “disruptors.” Their mantra was simple: “We don’t need a hundred people; twelve will do.” Most outsiders scoffed, assuming such a scope required a much larger crew. Yet the founders drew confidence from their indie‑film backgrounds, where they learned to “punch above their weight.” After 80 pitch meetings, they finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus.
The founders’ Hollywood credentials run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—who later co‑founded Wolf Haus and 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 Chris Roberts founded before moving on to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch tinkering in Unreal Engine. He recalls discovering that the engine could be downloaded for free, which felt like a rare invitation to create without the usual financial barrier.
Using YouTube tutorials, he built a few small prototypes before deciding to tackle something larger—a doomsday cult simulator that fused his love of survival games with grindhouse cinema. The proof‑of‑concept was a rough, ambitious demo that he shared with Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, a partner studio. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, brings a unique blend of film and tech experience. He began as a producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s, founding Sekretagent Productions, which supplied writing talent for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
Later, he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million (about $330 million). After the sale, he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire.
A sudden call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into game development when he saw Dietsch’s demo and was “blown away.” Wendschuh then recruited Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games vice‑president now heading Raccoon Logic (the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet), as a strategic advisor. Schneider brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With this core in place, the studio turned its attention to financing—a daunting task amid a 2023 industry downturn.
Initial outreach yielded interest but no commitments. After signing with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, the team relaunched its pitch campaign in 2024, eventually closing a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
The partnership with CAA, which also represents titles such as 007: First Light, proved crucial. Derek Douglas, Wolf Haus’s agent at CAA, had previously represented Wendschuh during his twelve‑year game‑development career and had headed the video‑game department at William Morris.
Their combined networks helped the studio navigate a tight market and secure the needed capital. Despite the high‑profile backing, the studio remains remarkably small—just 13 full‑time employees. Dietsch emphasizes that the team intentionally kept the roster tight to preserve a “everyone has a voice” culture.
To make a large‑scale, high‑fidelity game feasible with such a lean crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and building the internal tools that would later allow those ideas to scale across an open‑world map without collapsing under their own weight. The equity financing model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools.
Krafton and Lifelike’s investments were used to self‑fund the entire development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. Because the investors share in the studio’s enterprise value, they encourage the team to continue building reusable tools—a philosophy that sometimes slows immediate progress but ultimately enables a small team to produce a game of this magnitude. When asked about the role of generative AI, Dietsch gives a clear answer: the studio does not use it for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential in game making. Handing the process over to an AI would defeat why we get up every morning," he says. Wendschuh adds that while they may use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management, it never touches the artistic side of development. Interestingly, Krafton—despite branding itself as an “AI‑first” company—insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, echoing similar stances taken by other Krafton‑owned studios such as Neon Giant.
The team’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely hand‑built, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices.
This dedication aligns with the founders’ broader philosophy that AI should not replace creative professionals like voice actors or artists. Dietsch notes that game development offers a immediacy that film lacks. In cinema, an idea can take years to secure funding, cast, and shoot, whereas in games a concept can be prototyped in a matter of hours and instantly viewed in the engine. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, requiring high‑profile talent to greenlight a project, while games have far fewer gatekeepers.
"You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game," he says, highlighting the democratizing potential of interactive media. Both founders agree that storytelling is the core driver, regardless of medium.
Dietsch recalls that as a child he wanted to make either movies or games, and a simple Christmas gift—a camera—set him on that path. He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, blending technical skill with narrative passion.
Whether through a cult‑simulator or a feature film, the goal remains the same: to craft an experience that engages, entertains, and tells a compelling story. The journey of Wolf Haus illustrates how a small, Hollywood‑savvy team can leverage in‑house tools, strategic partnerships, and a clear creative vision to produce a large‑scale game without relying on generative AI, proving that size and technology are not the only determinants of ambition.