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 on pigs, unleash machine‑gun fire, and eventually confront massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One of the more memorable, yet omitted, moments was the appearance of a "snake gun," a quirky weapon that originated from a simple suggestion by a team member’s child. Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recounts how his team quickly turned that off‑hand idea into a functional in‑game weapon. "A kid asked if there could be a snake‑shooting gun," Dietsch says.
"Because we had a scalable gun‑creation tool, I was able to prototype it in about half an hour. The kid was thrilled, and the snake gun stayed in the final build." That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us. The game is an open‑world sandbox survival experience set in a 1970s‑style cult, where players can recruit AI followers or invite friends to join their cause in co‑op mode. It also showcases 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 chief operating officer, explains their philosophy: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑level experience with just twelve people. Most people thought we were crazy." The founders’ backgrounds help explain how they could pull off such an ambitious feat on a modest budget.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of actor‑director Mel Gibson, who later co‑founded Wolf Haus. Together they co‑wrote and co‑directed indie films like Happy Hunting and Manifest West.
Abbott comes from a lineage of Hollywood makeup artistry—his father, Larry Abbott, is a renowned makeup artist—and he helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company started by Chris Roberts before the creator moved on to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. This blend of film experience and indie‑budget sensibility gave the team a knack for “punching above their weight.” The journey to funding was long and arduous.
Wolf Haus pitched the concept roughly eighty times before securing equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital. Both investors took a stake in the studio, providing the financial runway needed to bring Join Us to life. The company’s leadership also includes Dooma Wendschuh, who serves as chief financial officer and narrative director.
Wendschuh began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to video games in the early 2000s, founding Sekretagent Productions, a studio that supplied narrative work for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. He later built several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million (about $330 million USD). After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into game development.
Wendschuh’s return led to the recruitment of Reid Schneider, a former vice‑president 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 brought on Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, formerly a programmer at Ubisoft Montreal, to serve as chief technology officer. With this core team in place, the studio turned its attention to securing capital during a market downturn that began in 2023. Initial outreach proved challenging, but after aligning with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and leveraging the agency’s connections, Wolf Haus closed its seed round with Krafton and Lifelike in 2024. The studio’s lean structure—just thirteen full‑time staff members—means each person wears multiple hats.
Dietsch emphasizes that the team deliberately kept the group small to maintain a collaborative environment where “everyone has a voice and touches the creative.” To make a large‑scale open world feasible with such limited manpower, Wolf Haus invested heavily in building internal tools early in development. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. "We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and engineering the toolset that would allow that design to scale across a six‑kilometre‑square map without collapsing under its own weight." Funding from Krafton and Lifelike was structured as equity, allowing the studio to self‑finance the entire development process. While the studio has begun to explore project‑finance options for marketing, the core development budget remains covered by its investors.
This arrangement aligns the investors’ interests with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the continued development of proprietary tools. "Whenever we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we simply build a tool to address it," says Wendschuh.
"It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables us to achieve ambitious goals with a tiny team." In an industry where generative AI is increasingly touted as a shortcut for asset creation, Wolf Haus has deliberately steered clear of it for creative work. Dietsch states plainly, "We don’t use any generative AI in the creative pipeline. We believe a human touch is essential to the experience we’re building." The studio does employ AI‑powered services for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, but not for art, design, or narrative. Interestingly, Krafton—despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company—insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in its creative processes, fearing that investors would be wary of funding a studio that relied on AI‑generated content.
The commitment to handcrafted quality extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us was built entirely by hand, and the title features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. This level of detail reflects the team’s belief that authenticity matters, even for an indie‑scale project. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and game creation.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and extensive pre‑production before any footage is shot. By contrast, a game developer can prototype a concept in a single morning, seeing it come to life in the engine almost instantly. "That immediacy is exhilarating," he says. "You can take a thought, plug it into Unreal, and watch it work in real time." Wendschuh adds that while film production is heavily front‑loaded—requiring big‑name talent to secure studio backing—games face fewer gatekeepers.
"Anyone can rent a camera and shoot a backyard movie, but without star power or distribution, it’s hard to succeed. With games, the barrier to entry is lower, and you don’t need an A‑list actor or director to attract an audience," he notes. Both mediums, however, share a common creative impulse: the desire to tell a story and immerse the audience in an experience.
From a childhood fascination with both movies and programming on a TI‑83 calculator, Dietsch’s career has always straddled the line between visual storytelling and interactive design. He believes that, regardless of the medium, the core goal remains the same—crafting an experience that engages, entertains, and resonates with players or viewers. Join Us stands as a testament to that philosophy, proving that a small, dedicated team with the right tools, industry know‑how, and a willingness to eschew shortcuts can deliver a game that feels both ambitious and personal.