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 zip around on pigs, fire machine guns, and eventually confront massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final cut 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 imagination. "My team member’s son asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new firearm in about half an hour, so I built one that literally shoots snakes. He was blown away, and the weapon stayed in the game," Dietsch recalls.
This anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, improvisational style that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit AI followers or friends to join a 1970s‑style cult. It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed 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 philosophy: "We set out to be disruptors. We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person team; twelve talented people can do this.’ Most people laughed, thinking it was impossible." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where they learned to achieve ambitious results on shoestring budgets.
After an arduous 80‑pitch marathon, the studio finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving the project the runway it needed. The founders’ Hollywood roots run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, the 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, a production company originally founded by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention to Star Citizen. Abbott’s film résumé also includes producing credits on titles such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us originated from Dietsch’s experimentation with Unreal Engine. "I discovered that Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a huge barrier to actually building one," he explains. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, eventually creating a few small prototypes. The concept that stuck with him was a doomsday cult simulator that merged survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—a hybrid of his two passions.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, expecting it to hit a technical wall quickly. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and passed it on to Dooma, the studio’s early‑stage partner. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously worked as a producer and screenwriter in film before moving into games in the early 2000s, contributing writing to Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. He later founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million.
After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, an old roommate, Michael Abbott, called him out of the blue about a video‑game project. "I watched the demo and it blew my mind, so I came out of retirement," Wendschuh says. He introduced the game to Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros.
Games VP who now leads Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet. Schneider recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer, rounding out a team that blended film, tech, and gaming expertise. Funding proved challenging in a market downturn. The team began pitching in summer 2023, receiving polite interest but few firm commitments.
After partnering with CAA in Los Angeles and re‑pitching in 2024, they finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—whose roster includes titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of seasoned veterans such as Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors. Despite the high‑profile backing, Join Us is being built by only 13 full‑time staff members. "We entered the project with a clear understanding of scope and deliberately kept the team small so everyone could have a voice and touch the creative process," says Dietsch.
To make a large‑scale open world feasible for such a lean crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tools 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 the map without the project collapsing under its own weight," Dietsch explains.
This tooling‑first approach consumed much of the first development year, but it laid the groundwork for future projects as well. The equity financing model gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect these tools. "Krafton and Lifelike are equity partners; their investment funds have been used to self‑finance the game," notes Wendschuh.
While the studio is now seeking a modest amount of project finance for marketing, the core development has been fully covered by the equity partners. "Equity investors want the studio to increase enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos. When we hit a problem we can’t solve, we simply build a tool to address it.
It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a tiny team to create something of this magnitude." In an industry where generative AI is often touted as a shortcut, Wolf Haus deliberately avoids it for creative work. "We don’t use generative AI in game development because we believe a human touch is essential," Dietsch says. "We have a few subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management, but nothing that influences design or art." Even Krafton, which has branded itself as an "AI‑first" company, insisted that Wolf Haus stay clear of AI‑generated content. "Our investors wanted assurance that the studio wasn’t relying on generative AI for core creation," confirms Wendschuh, echoing similar statements from Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio.
The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map was manually built, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—a point of pride for the team, especially given their indie status.
Dietsch reflects on the differences between film and games, noting the immediacy of the latter. "In film, an idea can sit on a page for years before it’s greenlit, and you need permission from countless stakeholders. In games, you can prototype a concept in the morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly. That speed is exhilarating." Wendschuh adds that filmmaking is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, high‑budget set‑ups required to secure a few A‑list names before a project even begins.
By contrast, the game industry has fewer gatekeepers, allowing a small team to reach a global audience without star power. "You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game," he says. Both founders agree that storytelling is the common thread linking movies and games. "When I was six, I wanted to create either movies or games; it boiled down to a coin toss and getting a camera for Christmas," Dietsch smiles.
"I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been drawn to both mediums. Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience.
That core purpose never changes."