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, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a quirky weapon that, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—originated from an off‑hand suggestion by a team member’s child. "His son asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’" Dietsch recalls.
"Because we had a modular gun system, I could prototype it in about thirty minutes, and the kid went nuts. It stayed in the game." This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit NPC followers or friends into a 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates why the studio’s development philosophy leans heavily on custom tools and a lean team structure.
Wolf Haus’s ambition was to prove that a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title could be built without a massive staff. Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed it up: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could do the whole thing with a dozen people, and they laughed. But we had a track record of punching above our weight in indie film, so we knew it was possible." After 80 pitches, the team finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, allowing them to keep the project self‑financed while retaining creative control.
The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs 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 originally founded by Chris Roberts before his foray into Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
This blend of cinematic experience and entrepreneurial grit set the tone for the studio’s approach to game development. Join Us began as a hobby project in Unreal Engine. "I discovered that Unreal was free to download and started tinkering with it after watching YouTube tutorials," Dietsch explains.
Though he had never built a game before, he quickly produced a few small prototypes. The concept that kept resurfacing was a doomsday cult simulator that merged survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—essentially a love letter to the movies and games he adored. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the pair began pitching the idea under the codename "Dooma." Dooma Wendschuh, the studio’s chief financial officer and narrative director, transitioned from a career in film production and screenwriting to video 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, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a random call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry. Impressed by Dietsch’s demo, Wendschuh re‑entered the scene, bringing in Reid Schneider—former VP at Warner Bros.
Games—and Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as strategic advisors and technical leads. Securing financing proved challenging amid a market downturn in 2023. The team’s early pitches generated interest but not commitments. After partnering with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and re‑approaching investors in 2024, they finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Wendschuh credits the CAA connection and the credibility of veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors that might otherwise have remained closed. What truly differentiates Join Us is the way it is being built. With only 13 full‑time staff members, Wolf Haus emphasizes a flat hierarchy where everyone contributes to both creative and technical decisions. To make such an ambitious open‑world possible, the studio invested heavily in internal tooling from day one.
"Every system we create must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," says Dietsch. "We built a robust toolkit so that as the world expands, the codebase doesn’t collapse under its own weight." The first year of development was essentially a parallel track of game design and tool creation, a strategy that also prepares the studio for future projects.
Funding from Krafton and Lifelike is structured as equity, meaning the investors share in the studio’s long‑term value rather than demanding short‑term returns. This model gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect its tools without the pressure of immediate profit. "Our investors want us to increase enterprise value, so they support our tool‑heavy workflow," Wendschuh notes. "When we hit a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a custom tool.
It may slow us down momentarily, but it enables a tiny team to achieve something that would normally require dozens of engineers." Despite industry chatter about generative AI accelerating small‑team development, Wolf Haus deliberately avoids it for creative work. "We believe a game needs a human touch," Dietsch asserts. "We use AI only for mundane tasks like calendar management, never for art, design, or writing." Krafton, which has publicly positioned itself as an "AI‑first" company, actually insisted that Wolf Haus refrain from using generative AI in the creative pipeline. This stance mirrors that of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly denied employing AI for its projects.
Wendschuh stresses the ethical dimension: "We don’t want AI to replace voice actors, artists, or other creatives. The six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is hand‑crafted, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by real actors. That was a non‑negotiable principle for us." Dietsch reflects on the contrast between filmmaking and game development. In film, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and massive budgets before a director ever sees the finished product.
In games, the feedback loop is almost instantaneous: "You can have an idea at breakfast, drop it into the engine by lunch, and see it run in real time. That immediacy is exhilarating." Wendschuh adds that movies are heavily front‑loaded with high‑profile talent and studio gatekeepers, making it difficult for an unknown creator to break through. By comparison, the video‑game market has fewer gatekeepers, allowing indie teams to reach audiences without A‑list names.
"You don’t need a Hollywood star to sell a game; you just need a compelling experience," he says. Both founders agree that the core motivation behind both mediums is storytelling. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games—it was a coin toss that landed on a camera for Christmas," Dietsch laughs. "I learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, and that love for interactivity never left me.
Whether you’re crafting a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. The tools change, but the purpose stays the same."