The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulation where robed disciples ride on pigs, unleash machine‑gun fire, and conclude with a vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the public cut was the infamous “snake gun,” a quirky weapon that, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—was born from a child’s off‑hand suggestion. "My team member’s son asked, ‘What if there was a gun that shot snakes?’" Dietsch recalls. "Because we had a modular weapon system, I could spin up a snake‑shooter in about thirty minutes.
Seeing his eyes light up was unforgettable, and the gun stayed in the final build." That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us. The game is an open‑world sandbox survival experience set in a 1970s‑style cult, where players can recruit AI followers or invite friends to join the madness.
It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title to emerge from a remarkably small crew. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed it up: “We wanted to be disruptors.
We told everyone we could build a AAA‑ish experience with just twelve people, and most people laughed.” The team’s confidence wasn’t naïve. Their background in indie filmmaking taught them to punch far above their budgetary weight.
After 80 pitches, they finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took a stake in Wolf Haus. Wolf Haus’s founding trio brings deep Hollywood credentials.
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 transition 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. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt blocked by the cost and complexity of making one," he says.
He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday cult simulator that merged his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept, showed it to Abbott, and the idea quickly gained momentum. The studio’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, entered the gaming world after a career as a film producer and screenwriter. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
Later he sold a cannabis‑formulation company, Ebbu, for roughly C$430 million. After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into development. He evaluated Dietsch’s demo, was blown away, and helped bring in strategic advisor Reid Schneider—formerly a VP at Warner Bros. Games—and CTO Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a veteran programmer from Ubisoft Montreal.
Funding proved to be the toughest hurdle. The team began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by an industry downturn. Initial outreach yielded interest but no commitments.
By partnering with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and leveraging connections like Derek Douglas—who had represented Wendschuh during his earlier gaming years—the studio eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024. Despite the high‑profile backers, Wolf Haus has deliberately kept its staff lean—13 full‑time members at the time of writing.
The philosophy is simple: a small team ensures that every voice is heard and that the creative imprint of the group remains distinct. To make a sprawling open‑world feasible with such limited manpower, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on.
"Any system we build has to be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. "We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and engineering the toolchain that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight." The equity financing model gave the studio the runway to perfect those tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s investment was used to self‑fund development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. "Equity partners want the studio to increase in enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," says Wendschuh.
"When we hit a problem we can’t solve, we build a bespoke tool—even if it slows short‑term progress, it enables us to deliver a complex game with a tiny crew." When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not rely on it for creative work. "We believe a game needs a human touch," Dietsch says. "We have a few AI subscriptions for scheduling and email drafting, but none of that touches the actual design or art." Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, also insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, aligning with the studio’s philosophy. Wendschuh notes that this stance mirrors Krafton‑owned Neon Giant’s public declaration of staying clear of AI‑driven content creation.
The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—an effort the team considered essential, even for an indie‑scale project.
Dietsch 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 within hours, allowing immediate iteration. "You can have an idea at breakfast and see it in the engine by lunch," he says, highlighting the immediacy that attracted him to interactive media.
Wendschuh adds that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, high‑stakes set work and a reliance on a few marquee names to secure financing. While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without established talent or distribution is rare. By contrast, the video‑game market has far fewer gatekeepers; a small team can launch a successful title without A‑list actors or directors.
Both mediums, however, share a core creative impulse: storytelling and immersive experience. "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," Dietsch reminisces.
"Programming on a TI‑83 taught me early that I loved building worlds, whether on screen or in code. Ultimately, both are about giving people an experience and telling a story, and that truth doesn’t change between film and games."