The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation. In the clip, robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles.
One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—originated from a simple suggestion by a team member’s child. "His son asked, ‘What if there’s a gun that shoots snakes?’ We had a modular weapon system that let us prototype a new gun in under thirty minutes. I built it on the spot, and the kid went nuts.
It stayed in the game," Dietsch recalls. This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. The same story also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first philosophy, which has allowed a tiny team 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 don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve skilled people can deliver.’ Most people laughed and said it was impossible." Yet the founders drew confidence from their backgrounds in independent filmmaking, where they had repeatedly learned to punch far above their financial weight. After a marathon of roughly eighty pitch meetings, they finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the studio. The founding trio’s Hollywood credentials run deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—who 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 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 was born from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "I discovered Unreal was free to download and started tinkering with it after watching countless YouTube tutorials," he explains. Though he had never built a commercial game before, he managed to finish a few small prototypes and then gravitated toward a more ambitious concept: a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with the gritty aesthetic of grindhouse cinema.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, hit a technical wall, and showed it to Abbott, who then introduced the project to Dooma Wendschuh. Wendschuh, now Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, began his career as a producer and screenwriter in film before transitioning to games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative work for titles such as 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 roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After the sale, he bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire. "I thought I was done, just walking my dog on the beach," Wendschuh says, before an unexpected call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, who told him a friend had built a video game. Curious, Wendschuh watched Dietsch’s demo, was blown away, and decided to come out of retirement. He brought 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), who joined as a strategic advisor.
Schneider recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With the core team in place, the next hurdle was funding—an especially tough challenge given the industry downturn of 2023‑24. The studio began pitching in the summer of 2023, receiving polite interest but also skepticism.
After partnering with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Los Angeles, they refined their pitch and returned to investors in 2024, eventually closing a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors that might otherwise have remained closed.
Despite the heavyweight pedigree, Join Us is being built by just thirteen 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." To make a sprawling open‑world game feasible with such a lean crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one.
"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 and engineering the toolchain that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight.
The equity‑funded model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect those tools. "Krafton and Lifelike provided the capital, which we used to self‑finance the development," says Wendschuh.
"We’re now adding a modest amount of project finance for marketing, but the core game was built entirely with their equity investment." This arrangement aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term vision: building reusable tools that can accelerate future projects, even if it means a slower pace in the short term. When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—Dietsch gives a clear answer: the studio does not employ it for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate assets would defeat the reason we get up every morning," he says. Wendschuh adds that the only AI they use is for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Krafton, which has recently branded itself as an “AI‑first” company, actually discouraged Wolf Haus from using generative AI in the creative pipeline.
The investor wanted assurance that the studio’s output would be entirely handcrafted, a stance echoed by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant, which publicly denied involvement in Krafton’s AI pivot. The commitment to hand‑crafted content is evident throughout Join Us. The six‑kilometre‑square map was manually designed, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors—an impressive feat for an indie team.
Dietsch believes this dedication to artisanal production differentiates the title in a market increasingly saturated with AI‑generated assets. Reflecting on the differences between film and games, Dietsch points out the immediacy of interactive media. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and extensive pre‑production.
By contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours and tested directly in the engine, providing instant feedback. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, short‑term bursts of activity on set, whereas games allow a more iterative, continuous development cycle. Both mediums share a core creative impulse: storytelling and immersive experience. Dietsch recounts that as a six‑year‑old he was torn between making movies or games, a decision that ultimately hinged on a Christmas gift—a camera.
He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, laying the groundwork for a career that now bridges both worlds. "Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re trying to give someone an experience, tell a story, and engage them. The tools change, but the goal stays the same," he concludes.