The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation. In the clip, robed followers charge on pig‑back, firing machine guns, before the screen fades to a massive, Cthulhu‑like tangle of tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that originated from an off‑hand suggestion by a developer’s son. Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recounted the moment: “My team member’s kid asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototype tool that let us spin up a new weapon in about half an hour, so I built it on the fly.
It blew his mind and it’s still in the game today.” That anecdote captures the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay that Join Us promises. Players will build a 1970s‑inspired cult, recruit followers or friends in co‑op mode, and survive in an open‑world environment where absurdity is the norm. Yet the game’s design philosophy also reflects the studio’s tech‑first mindset, which has allowed a high‑fidelity experience to emerge from a remarkably small development team. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed it up: “We set out to be disruptors.
We told everyone we could build a AAA‑ish title with just twelve people. Most people laughed and said it was impossible.” The team’s confidence wasn’t unfounded. Coming from indie‑film backgrounds, they were accustomed to punching far above their budgetary weight.
After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the studio. The founders’ Hollywood credentials run deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, the son of Mel Gibson, and the two 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 started by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention to Star Citizen.
Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us began as a personal experiment in Unreal Engine. “I discovered Unreal was free to download and thought, ‘Why not give it a try?’” Dietsch explained.
He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He created a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the pair took the concept to Dooma, the company that would later become Wolf Haus. Dooma Wendschuh, the studio’s CFO and narrative director, started his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, which supplied narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
In the 2010s he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After the sale, he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, planning a quiet retirement. That plan was interrupted when an old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, called to show him a game that Dietsch had built.
“It blew my mind and pulled me out of retirement,” Wendschuh recalled. Wendschuh introduced the demo to Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros.
Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet. Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With this core in place, the studio turned its attention to financing. Pitching began in summer 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. Despite the challenging climate, the team’s unique pedigree and the novelty of their project attracted interest. After partnering with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and refining their pitch throughout 2024, they closed a seed round with Krafton and Lifelike Capital.
The backing from CAA—an agency that also represents titles like 007: First Light—proved valuable, as did the involvement of seasoned game veterans Schneider and Chartrand. “My agent Derek Douglas had represented me for twelve years in games and previously ran the video‑game department at William Morris,” Wendschuh noted, underscoring how industry connections smoothed the fundraising path. What truly sets Join Us apart is the way it’s being built: a team of only thirteen full‑time staff. Dietsch emphasized that the small size was intentional: “We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership over the final product.” To make such an ambitious open‑world title feasible with a lean crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset.
“Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” Dietsch said. “We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and building the internal tools that would let that gameplay scale across a massive map without collapsing under its own weight.” The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s capital was used to self‑fund development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing.
This arrangement aligned investor incentives with the studio’s ethos: “Our backers want the studio to increase its enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building approach, even if it slows short‑term development. It’s the trade‑off that lets a tiny team achieve something that normally requires dozens of engineers.” When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—both Dietsch and Wendschuh were unequivocal.
"We don’t use generative AI for any creative work," Dietsch stated. "Our process is fundamentally human‑driven; handing the creative decisions over to an algorithm would defeat the purpose of why we get up every morning.” Wendschuh added that the studio only employs AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Interestingly, Krafton, which has publicly positioned itself as an “AI‑first” company, explicitly required 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 involvement in the parent’s AI pivot.
The commitment to hand‑crafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map was built entirely by artists, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—no synthetic voices. Dietsch believes this human touch is essential, especially for a title that leans heavily on dark humor and satire.
Dietsch also reflected on the differences between filmmaking and game development. In film, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and a long production schedule.
In contrast, a game idea can be prototyped within hours. “You can have an idea at breakfast and see it in the engine by lunch,” he said, describing the immediacy that fuels his passion for interactive media. Wendschuh compared the gatekeeping structures of the two industries.
While anyone can pick up a camera and shoot a short film, breaking through without marquee talent or a distribution deal is rare. Video games, however, have far fewer gatekeepers; a small indie team can reach a global audience without needing A‑list actors or directors.
This democratization, he argues, is why the studio feels confident in pursuing an unconventional, cult‑centric concept. Both founders trace their love of storytelling back to childhood. Dietsch recalled that at six years old he wanted to create either movies or games, and a Christmas camera set him on a path that eventually merged programming on a TI‑83 calculator with a fascination for narrative. “Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re trying to give someone an experience, tell a story, and engage them,” he concluded, emphasizing that the core creative impulse remains the same across mediums.
In summary, Join Us is a testament to what a small, tightly knit team can achieve when they combine Hollywood experience, entrepreneurial savvy, and a willingness to build bespoke tools. By rejecting generative AI in favour of handcrafted assets and human performance, Wolf Haus is positioning the game as a uniquely personal, chaotic, and immersive cult‑sim that could redefine expectations for indie‑scale development in the AAA arena.