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 charge on pigs, fire machine guns, and conclude with a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like tentacle display. What didn’t make the cut, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—was the infamous snake‑gun. "One of the team members’ kids suggested a snake‑gun," Dietsch recounts.
"We had a modular weapon system, so within half an hour I built a gun that launches snakes. The kid went wild, and the weapon stayed in the final build." That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit AI followers or friends into a 1970s‑style cult.
It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a high‑fidelity, large‑scale experience to be produced by a remarkably small crew. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed it up: “We set out to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build this with twelve people, and they laughed.” The team’s confidence stems from a background in low‑budget, high‑impact filmmaking. "We come from indie film,” Abbott says, “so we’re used to punching far above our weight.” After 80 pitch meetings, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the studio.
The founders’ Hollywood connections run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who later 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 his Star Citizen venture.
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 and movie‑buff forever," he explains. "The barrier to actually creating something felt huge, so I started learning from YouTube tutorials and built a few tiny prototypes." Even without a formal development background, Dietsch managed to craft several small games before deciding to tackle something bigger: a doomsday cult simulator that merged his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
He built a proof‑of‑concept, expecting to hit a technical wall at some point. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter immediately took it to Dooma, a partner studio. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO 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 work 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 firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After the sale, 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 into game development. "I watched the prototype Joe sent me and it blew my mind," Wendschuh says.
He then introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former Warner Bros. Games VP and current head of Raccoon Logic, who became 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 financing—a daunting task during the industry downturn of 2023‑24.
The studio began pitching in the summer of 2023, receiving positive but cautious feedback. After enlisting CAA (Creative Artists Agency) as representation and refining their pitch, they secured seed funding from Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024. Wendschuh credits CAA’s clout and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors.
Despite the high ambitions, Wolf Haus kept its headcount to thirteen full‑time staff. "We wanted a small, tight‑knit group where everyone has a voice and touches the creative process," says Dietsch.
To make such a scope feasible, the studio invested heavily in internal tooling from day one. "Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," he explains.
The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and building the pipelines that would later allow the open‑world map to expand without collapsing under its own weight. The equity partnership with Kraftor and Lifelike provided the runway to perfect these tools. "The money they invested essentially self‑funded the game," Wendschuh notes.
"We’re now adding a modest project‑finance layer for marketing, but the core development was covered by the equity investors." One of the most striking aspects of Wolf Haus’s approach is its staunch avoidance of generative AI in the creative process. When asked about AI, Dietsch gave a blunt answer: "We don’t use any generative AI. The human touch is essential to us." Wendschuh adds, "We have a few AI subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management, but none of them touch the creative side of development." Even Krafton, which has publicly positioned itself as an "AI‑first" company, insisted that Wolf Haus not rely on generative AI for content creation.
This mirrors the stance of Krafton‑owned Neon Giant, which publicly denied using AI for its own projects. The studio’s philosophy is rooted in protecting creative jobs: "We respect artists and voice actors, and we don’t want AI to replace them," says Wendschuh. Accordingly, the six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is handcrafted, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—a point the team emphasizes despite their indie size. Dietsch also highlights a fundamental difference between filmmaking and game development: immediacy.
In film, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring green‑lights, casting, and massive budgets. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning and instantly visualized in the engine. "You can see it, you can interact with it right away, and that immediacy is exhilarating," he says.
Wendschuh observes that movies are heavily front‑loaded with pre‑production logistics, often hinging on a handful of high‑profile talent to secure studio backing. While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without marquee names or distribution is rare.
Games, by contrast, have far fewer gatekeepers. "You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game," he notes, underscoring why the medium feels more accessible to small, passionate teams. Both men agree that the core creative impulse remains the same across mediums: storytelling and experience design.
"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 reflects.
"I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been straddling both worlds. Whether it’s 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."