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 ride pigs, wield machine guns, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that CEO and creative director Joe Dietsch says was inspired by a child’s off‑hand suggestion. "One of the team members’ son asked, ‘What would a snake gun look like?’" Dietsch recalls.
"Because we have a rapid‑prototyping tool, I was able to assemble a snake‑shooting firearm in about thirty minutes. The kid was thrilled, and the weapon stayed in the game." This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title where players can recruit AI followers or friends into a 1970s‑style cult. It also highlights Wolf Haus’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a tiny crew to deliver a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We set out to be disruptors.
While everyone assumed you needed a hundred‑person team to build a game of this scope, we believed twelve could do it. Most people laughed at the idea, but our background in indie filmmaking taught us how to punch well above our weight." After 80 pitches, the team finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took a stake in Wolf Haus.
The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, the son of actor‑director Mel Gibson and another Wolf Haus co‑founder.
Together they 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 films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s experiments in Unreal Engine.
"I discovered Unreal was free to download and started learning from YouTube tutorials," he explains. "I’d loved games for years, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge. Once I got the engine, I began making tiny prototypes, then decided to aim bigger." The concept that stuck was a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics, bridging his passions for movies and games into a single intellectual property. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo and showed it to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, the studio’s early‑stage partner.
Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously worked as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing writing services for titles such as 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. After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a sudden call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back.
"I was looking at the video Joe had made, and it completely blew my mind. It convinced me to come out of retirement," Wendschuh says. He introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros.
Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, who became a strategic advisor. Schneider recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer.
Funding proved challenging in a market downturn. The team began pitching in summer 2023, receiving positive reactions but facing a cautious investor climate. 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 veteran industry figures for opening doors. Despite the high‑profile backing, Wolf Haus remains a lean operation of just thirteen full‑time staff. "We entered the project with a clear sense of scope and a desire to keep the team small, so everyone has a voice and can touch the creative process," says Dietsch. To make a massive open‑world game feasible with such a limited crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on.
"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 internal tools that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight.
The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools. "Krafton and Lifelike’s investment funds the game directly, making it essentially self‑funded," notes Wendschuh. "We’re now adding a bit of project finance for marketing, but the core development has been covered by their equity stakes." This arrangement aligns investor incentives with the studio’s ethos of tool‑driven development: whenever a problem arises, the team builds a bespoke solution, even if it slows immediate progress, because it enables them to maintain a tiny team while delivering a large‑scale experience. When asked about generative AI, Dietsch is unequivocal: the studio does not rely on it for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate core content would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," he says.
Wendschuh adds that they only use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton—positioned as an "AI‑first" company—insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in its creative pipeline, echoing similar statements from other Krafton‑owned studios. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely hand‑built, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, a point the team considers vital for an indie title of this magnitude.
Dietsch reflects on the contrast between film and game creation. In film, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent. In games, an inspiration can be prototyped in a single morning, allowing immediate iteration.
Wendschuh observes that film production is front‑loaded with intense, high‑stakes set work, whereas games have fewer gatekeepers, making it easier for small teams to achieve success without A‑list names. Both mediums, however, share a common creative impulse: storytelling and immersive experiences.
"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 says. "Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re trying to give someone an experience, tell a story, and engage them. That core mission hasn’t changed for me."