The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers zip around on pigs, wielding machine guns, before the screen fades to a massive, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles.
What didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake gun, a 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 members’ kids asked, ‘What if there’s a snake‑shooting gun?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new weapon in about thirty minutes, so I built it on the spot. The kid went nuts, and the gun stayed in the game," Dietsch recalls. This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us – an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit followers or friends into a 1970s‑style cult.
It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, sums up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve talented people can do this.’ Most people laughed, saying it was impossible. But we’ve proven them wrong." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where they learned to punch far above their budgetary weight.
After 80 pitches, the team finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now hold stakes in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs 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 originally founded by Chris Roberts before his move 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.
"Unreal was free to download, and I’d been a gamer for as long as I could remember, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge," he explains. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest games, and eventually returned to an idea that fascinated him: a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
The proof‑of‑concept prototype was shown to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, a publishing partner. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games 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, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million (about $330 million USD). After cashing out, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, planning a quiet retirement. Yet a call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back: "Joe showed me a demo, and it blew my mind.
I came out of retirement to help," Wendschuh says. Through Abbott’s network, the studio recruited Reid Schneider—former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the creators of Journey to the Savage Planet—as a strategic advisor. Schneider then brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With this core team in place, Wolf Haus turned to fundraising during a market downturn in the summer of 2023. After initial outreach, they signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, refined their pitch, and secured a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024. Abbott attributes part of that success to the CAA connection, noting that the agency also represents high‑profile titles like 007: First Light.
"Our agent Derek Douglas had represented me for twelve years in games and even ran the video‑game department at William Morris. That kind of pedigree opened doors," Wendschuh adds. Despite the star‑studded advisory board, the studio remains lean—just 13 full‑time employees. Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional: "We wanted a team where everyone has a voice, where every person can touch the creative direction, and where the final product truly feels like it came from a tight‑knit group." To make an ambitious open‑world title feasible with so few hands, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling early on.
"Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and building the internal toolset that would let those ideas scale across a six‑kilometre‑square map without collapsing under their own weight. This tool‑centric philosophy is reinforced by their funding model: Krafton and Lifelike’s equity investment allowed the studio to self‑finance development, using the capital to build the very tools that make a small team viable. Wendschuh notes that equity funding aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term vision.
"Our backers want the studio to increase in enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos. When we hit a technical roadblock, we simply create a bespoke tool to solve it.
It may slow immediate progress, but it enables us to achieve a scope that would otherwise be impossible with a tiny crew." When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—both Dietsch and Wendschuh are unequivocal: the studio does not rely on AI for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential. We love making games ourselves; handing the process to an AI would defeat the purpose of why we get up each morning," Dietsch says.
Wendschuh adds that while they may use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management or email drafting, none of it touches the creative pipeline. Interestingly, Krafton, which markets itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the game's creation, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant.
The team’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The entire six‑kilometre map was manually built, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. "Even as a small indie, we felt it was crucial to preserve that human element," says Dietsch. Dietsch also reflects on the contrast between film and game development.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and studio green‑lights. In games, an inspiration can be prototyped the same morning and tested instantly in the engine.
This immediacy fuels his passion: "You can see your idea in action within hours, which is exhilarating." Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, high‑stakes set work and a reliance on a few high‑profile talents to secure financing. While anyone can shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. By contrast, the game industry has fewer gatekeepers; a small team can launch a successful product without needing A‑list actors or directors. This democratization is a key factor behind Wolf Haus’s confidence in their lean approach.
Both founders agree that, at their core, making movies and making games share the same creative impulse: delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It boiled down to a coin toss and whether I got a camera for Christmas.
I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been drawn to both mediums. Ultimately, it’s about crafting an experience, no matter the format," Dietsch concludes.
Join Us thus stands as a testament to what a small, determined team with Hollywood savvy, tech ingenuity, and a refusal to rely on generative AI can achieve in today’s game landscape.