The trailer for Join Us made a splash at 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 element that didn’t appear in the teaser 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 off‑hand suggestion. "One of the team member’s kids asked, ‘What would a snake gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool for weapons, so in about thirty minutes I built a gun that actually fires snakes.
The kid went nuts, and the weapon made it into the final build," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit NPC followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a tiny crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a far larger staff.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, sums it up: “We set out to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑ish experience with just twelve people, and most people thought we were insane.” The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on shoestring budgets.
“We come from indie filmmaking, where you learn to punch well above your weight,” Abbott explains. After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity investments from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving Wolf Haus the runway it needed. Wolf Haus’s founders have deep roots in Hollywood. 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 his shift to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated when Dietsch began tinkering with Unreal Engine. “I discovered the engine was free to download and thought, ‘Why not give it a try?’ I learned everything from YouTube tutorials and built a few small prototypes,” he says.
Though he had no formal game‑development background, he soon crafted a modest demo that sparked his fascination with a doomsday‑cult concept—a blend of survival mechanics and grindhouse cinema that could bridge his love of movies and games into a single intellectual property. 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 previously produced and written for film before transitioning to games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, which supplied 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 firm Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million (about $330 million USD). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire and enjoy a quiet life. That plan was interrupted when his old Hollywood‑hillroommate, Michael Abbott, called.
"He said a friend had made a video game and wanted my opinion. I watched Joe’s demo, it blew my mind, and I came out of retirement," Wendschuh recounts. 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 a core team forming, the next hurdle was financing—a difficult task given the industry downturn of 2023. The studio began pitching in the summer of that year, initially facing skepticism despite the obvious appeal of their concept.
After enlisting CAA (Creative Artists Agency) as representation and re‑pitching in 2024, they finally closed 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. "Derek Douglas, our agent at CAA, had represented me for twelve years in games and previously ran the video‑game department at William Morris," he notes. Regardless of pedigree, the most striking aspect of Join Us is its development model: a studio of just 13 full‑time staff.
"We entered the project with a clear sense of scope and wanted to keep the team small enough that everyone could have a voice and touch the creative process," Dietsch explains. To make such an ambitious open‑world possible, the team invested heavily in custom tooling early on. "Any system in the game 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 simultaneously designing gameplay and constructing the tools that would enable it." The funding structure also allowed the studio to perfect those tools.
Krafton and Lifelike’s equity stakes meant the game could be self‑funded, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. "Equity investors care about the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos. When we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we simply build a tool to address it. It may slow short‑term progress, but it empowers a tiny team to create a game of this scale," Wendschuh says.
In an era where many small studios lean on generative AI to stretch resources, Wolf Haus deliberately avoided it. "We don’t use generative AI for any creative work.
Game development is a craft we love, and handing it over to an algorithm defeats the purpose of why we get up each day," Dietsch asserts. Wendschuh adds that the only AI they employ is for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Krafton, despite branding itself as an “AI‑first” company, also insisted that Wolf Haus stay clear of generative AI in the creative pipeline. This mirrors the stance of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly rejected the parent’s AI pivot.
Both companies emphasize preserving human artistry, especially for voice work and visual design. "Our six‑kilometre‑square map is handcrafted, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by real actors," Dietsch emphasizes. Transitioning from film to games gave Dietsch a newfound appreciation for immediacy.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring countless approvals before a director ever sees it on set. In games, an inspiration can be prototyped in a few hours, allowing developers to instantly interact with their vision. "You can have an idea at breakfast and see it in the engine by lunch," he says. Wendschuh points out that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with massive coordination required to secure high‑profile talent before a project ever gets greenlit.
While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. By contrast, the barriers to entry for games are lower, making it easier for small teams to achieve success without celebrity endorsement. Both mediums, however, share a core creative impulse: storytelling and immersion. Dietsch reflects on his childhood, when a coin toss decided whether he’d receive a camera or a game console for Christmas.
He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator and has since pursued both crafts. "Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. The medium changes, but the goal stays the same."