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 massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacle looming on the horizon. One element that didn’t make the final edit was the infamous “snake gun,” a quirky weapon that CEO and creative director Joe Dietsch says was born from a child’s off‑hand suggestion. "One of the team members’ sons asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new weapon in about thirty minutes, so I built it on the spot.
The kid went nuts, and the gun stayed in the game," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a relatively tiny team to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff. "We set out to be disruptors," says Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer.
"We told ourselves, ‘We don’t need a hundred people; twelve should be enough.’ Everyone else thought we were crazy." The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets. Abbott and his colleagues come from indie‑film backgrounds where they learned to “punch above their weight.” After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving the studio the financial runway it needed. The founders’ Hollywood roots run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—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 renowned makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before his Star Citizen venture. Abbott later produced movies 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 always loved games, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge. I started learning from YouTube tutorials and built a few tiny prototypes," he explains. Though he had no formal game‑dev experience, Dietsch soon crafted a couple of small titles 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 prototype, hit a few technical walls, and showed the demo to Abbott, who then introduced it to Dooma.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer 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 company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million (about $330 million USD). After the sale, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire.
"I thought I’d just walk my dog on the beach," he says, until an unexpected call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into development. Impressed by Dietsch’s demo, Wendschuh re‑entered the industry, bringing on strategic advisor Reid Schneider—former VP at Warner Bros. Games—and recruiting Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With the core team in place, the next hurdle was funding, which proved difficult during a market downturn in 2023.
"People liked what we were building, but the timing was tough," Dietsch notes. The studio partnered with CAA in Los Angeles, refined its pitch, and finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024. Wendschuh believes the CAA connection—and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand—were crucial in convincing investors.
Despite the high aspirations, Wolf Haus remains a lean operation of just 13 full‑time staff. "We wanted everyone to have a voice and to touch the creative process directly," says Dietsch.
To make a large‑scale open world feasible with such a small crew, the studio invested heavily in internal tools early on. "If a system needs to scale, a single person must be able to debug and extend it," he explains.
The first year of development was therefore split between designing gameplay concepts and building the underlying toolset that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight. The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the freedom to perfect these tools without the pressure of short‑term milestones. "Krafton and Lifelike’s investment essentially self‑funded the game," Wendschuh says.
"We’re now only using a small amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development was covered by the equity partners." One surprising aspect of the studio’s approach is its staunch refusal to use generative AI for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential in game making," Dietsch asserts.
"We have a few AI subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management, but nothing that touches design, art, or narrative." Even Krafton, which has publicly positioned itself as an "AI‑first" company, insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in its creative pipeline. "Our investors wanted to be sure they weren’t backing a studio that relied on AI to produce content," Wendschuh explains, noting a similar stance from Krafton‑owned Neon Giant.
The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s massive six‑kilometre‑square map and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors. "That level of human involvement mattered to us, even as a small indie," Dietsch says. Dietsch also highlights a key difference between film and games: immediacy.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring countless approvals and a lengthy production schedule. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and instantly visualized.
"That instant feedback loop is exhilarating," he says. Wendschuh adds that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, high‑stakes set work and the need to secure A‑list talent before a studio will green‑light a project.
While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without big names or distribution is rare. Game development, by contrast, has far fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without needing star power.
Both founders agree that whether you’re making movies or games, the core creative impulse is the same: to craft an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games, and it came down to a coin toss and getting a camera for Christmas," Dietsch reflects. "I learned to program on a TI‑83, so I’ve always loved both mediums. In the end, the goal is the same—give people an experience and a story they’ll remember."