The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers ride pigs, unleash machine‑gun fire, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—originated from a child’s off‑hand suggestion.
"One of our team member’s son asked, ‘What would a snake gun look like?’" Dietsch recalls. "Because we have a rapid‑prototyping tool, I was able to build a functional snake‑shooting weapon in roughly thirty minutes.
The kid was thrilled, and the gun stayed in the game." That anecdote captures the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay at the heart of Join Us. In this open‑world survival title, players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑inspired cult. The experience is as much about the mayhem as it is about the underlying technology that lets a tiny team deliver a high‑fidelity product.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their philosophy: "We set out to be disruptors. Everyone told us you needed a hundred‑person studio to pull something like this off. We proved them wrong with just twelve core developers." The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets. "Our roots are in indie film," Abbott explains.
"We’re used to punching well above our weight." After 80 pitch meetings, the studio finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving Wolf Haus the financial runway it needed. Wolf Haus’s leadership team is steeped in Hollywood pedigree. 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 films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us began as a hobby project for Dietsch in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d been a gamer for as long as I could remember," he says.
"It felt like there was a massive barrier to actually creating something, but once I installed the engine and followed a few YouTube tutorials, the possibilities opened up." Even without a formal background in game development, Dietsch built a couple of small prototypes before committing to a larger vision. He kept returning to the idea of a doomsday cult simulator because it blended his love of survival mechanics with the gritty aesthetic of grindhouse cinema.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the duo took the concept to Dooma, a partner studio that helped refine the early build. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, entered the gaming world after a career as a film producer and screenwriter. In the early 2000s he founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
Later, he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from former roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry. Wendschuh was instantly impressed by Dietsch’s demo and agreed to join the effort.
Through Wendschuh’s network, Wolf Haus attracted strategic advisor Reid Schneider—formerly a vice‑president at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet. Schneider recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With this core group in place, the studio turned its attention to financing.
Pitching began in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. "People liked what we were showing, but the market was tough," Dietsch notes.
The team enlisted the representation of CAA in Los Angeles, leveraged that relationship for additional meetings, and eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024. Wendschuh believes CAA’s clout—alongside the involvement of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand—was instrumental in securing the deals. Despite the high ambitions, the studio has remained lean, employing only 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional: "We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership of the final product." A critical factor enabling such a scope with a tiny crew is the early investment in custom tooling.
"Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. "We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and building the internal tools that would let us expand the open world without the project collapsing under its own weight." The equity funding from Kraftor and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance development while reserving a modest amount of project finance for marketing later on. "Our investors are motivated to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," says Wendschuh. "Whenever we hit a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a tool for it.
It may slow us down short‑term, but it lets a small team accomplish something that would normally require many more hands." When asked about generative AI, Dietsch is unequivocal: the studio does not employ it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate assets would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," he says.
Wendschuh adds that the only AI they use is for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, also insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in its creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio.
The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely hand‑built, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—a point the team considers non‑negotiable, even for an indie title.
Dietsch reflects on the contrast between filmmaking and game development. In film, an idea can take years to reach production, requiring approvals from directors, actors, and studios. In games, an inspiration can be prototyped the same day, allowing immediate iteration.
Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with extensive pre‑production work needed to secure talent and financing, whereas games face fewer gatekeepers. "You don’t need an A‑list star or director to make a successful game," he says, highlighting the democratizing potential of interactive media. Both mediums, however, share a common creative drive: storytelling and delivering an experience. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games.
It came down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera," Dietsch laughs. "Whether it’s a film or a game, you’re trying to engage an audience, tell a story, and create an emotional journey. That core purpose hasn’t changed for me."