You may remember seeing the Join Us trailer during the Xbox Showcase in June. The clip introduced a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation, featuring robed followers riding pigs, wielding machine guns, and culminating in a shot of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What wasn’t shown was the infamous snake gun, a detail that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, proudly explains.
"One of the team members’ kids came up with the idea and asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool for weapons, so in about thirty minutes I built a gun that fires snakes. The kid was blown away, and the weapon made it into the final build." That anecdote captures the kind of chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op—to join a 1970s‑style cult.
It also illustrates Wolf Haus’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, the studio’s COO, sums it up: "We set out to be disruptors." "We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve people can handle this.’ Most people thought we were dreaming. But we’ve proven it’s possible. Our background in indie filmmaking taught us how to punch far above our weight." After 80 pitch meetings, the team finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus.
The founders bring deep Hollywood connections. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—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 renowned makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, a production company founded by Chris Roberts before he moved on to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us originated from Dietsch tinkering in Unreal Engine. "It started simply: I discovered Unreal Engine was free to download. I’d loved games for years, but there seemed to be a huge barrier to actually creating something.
I downloaded the engine and began learning from YouTube tutorials." Although he had no formal game‑development background, Dietsch built a few small prototypes before deciding to tackle something larger. "I kept circling back to the idea of a doomsday cult simulator because it blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema—my two biggest passions." He crafted a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming he would eventually hit a technical wall. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter took it to Dooma for further development.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to 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 (about $330 million USD). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire and enjoy a quiet life. Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, a call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back.
"I was told a friend had made a video game. I watched Joe’s demo and it blew my mind, so I came out of retirement." Wendschuh introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros.
Games and now head of Raccoon Logic (the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet). Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, formerly a programmer at Ubisoft Montreal, to serve as chief technology officer.
With the core team forming, the next hurdle was financing—an especially tough task given the industry downturn of mid‑2023. "People liked what we were building, but the market was cold," Dietsch recalls.
The studio enlisted the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, refined their pitch, and returned to investors in 2024, eventually closing a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh believes the CAA connection, along with veteran advisors like Schneider and Chartrand, was pivotal.
"My agent Derek Douglas, who represented me during my twelve years in games, also heads the video‑game department at William Morris. That network opened doors." Despite the impressive pedigree, Join Us is being built by just 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team ethos was intentional: "We wanted a setting where every voice matters, everyone can touch the creative process, and the final product feels like a labor of love from a tight‑knit group." To make such an ambitious title feasible with limited personnel, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset.
"Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person. We built a robust toolkit early on so that when features expanded across the open world, the project wouldn’t collapse under its own weight. The first year was as much about building those tools as it was about designing gameplay." The funding structure gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools.
"Krafton and Lifelike are equity partners; their investment has essentially self‑funded the development. We’re now only using a small amount of project finance for marketing, but the core game was built with their equity capital." Equity investors also align with the studio’s philosophy of tool‑driven development. "Our backers want the studio’s enterprise value to grow, so they support our extensive tool‑building approach. When we encounter a problem we can’t solve off‑the‑shelf, we create a bespoke tool.
It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a small team to deliver a game of this scope." When the conversation turns to tiny‑team development, generative AI often comes up. Dietsch makes it clear the studio has deliberately steered clear of it.
"We don’t use generative AI for any creative work. Game development is a craft we love, and handing that over to an algorithm would defeat the purpose of why we get up each morning." Wendschuh adds, "We have a few AI subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, but nothing touches the creative side." Interestingly, Krafton—positioning itself as an “AI‑first” company—explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline. This mirrors statements from Krafton‑owned Neon Giant, which also distanced itself from the parent’s AI pivot. "We respect creative professionals and don’t want AI to replace voice actors or artists," says Wendschuh.
"Our six‑kilometre‑square map is hand‑crafted, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human talent. That mattered to us, even as a small indie studio." Dietsch notes a key advantage of games over film: immediacy. "In movies, you write a script, wait years, secure financing, then finally shoot.
With games, you can have an idea this morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly. That rapid feedback loop is exhilarating." Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, requiring a handful of high‑profile directors or actors to greenlight a project. While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without big names or distribution is rare.
By contrast, the barriers to entry for games are lower; you don’t need an A‑list star or director to achieve success. Both men agree that storytelling is the common thread. "When I was six, I wanted to make either games or movies. It boiled down to a coin toss and maybe getting a camera for Christmas.
I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been a hybrid of both worlds. Whether you’re crafting a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience.
That core goal doesn’t change between mediums."