You may remember the Join Us trailer that debuted during the Xbox Showcase in June. The clip introduced a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a hail of machine‑gun fire, and culminate in a nightmarish vision of Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake‑gun, a weapon that Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—attributes to a spontaneous idea from a team member’s child.
"His son asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’" Dietsch recounts. "Because we had a modular gun‑creation tool, I could prototype it in about thirty minutes. The kid went wild, and we kept the weapon in the game." This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title that lets players recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first philosophy, which has enabled a visually rich, large‑scale experience to be produced by a remarkably small crew.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve people can do it.’ Most people laughed and said it was impossible." Their confidence stems from a history of doing big things on shoestring budgets.
"We come from indie filmmaking, where you learn to punch far above your weight," Abbott explains. After 80 pitches, the team finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs 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 veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded 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 originated from Dietsch tinkering in Unreal Engine. "I discovered Unreal was free to download and started learning from YouTube tutorials," he says. Though he had no prior development experience, he built a few small prototypes before deciding to tackle something larger.
The seed of the project was a “doomsday cult simulator” that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—essentially fusing his love of movies and games into a single intellectual property. He built 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, a partner that helped refine the concept. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, which supplied writing 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 roughly C$430 million.
After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, a call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back.
"I saw the demo Joe had made and it blew my mind—so I came out of retirement," Wendschuh recalls. 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. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing—an uphill battle during a market downturn.
The studio began pitching in summer 2023, initially without an agent. After signing with CAA in Los Angeles, they relaunched their pitch in 2024 and eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits CAA’s representation and the presence of industry veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors. Despite the high‑profile backers, Join Us remains a lean operation of just 13 full‑time staff.
"We entered the project with a clear sense of scope and wanted to keep a small‑team culture where everyone has a voice and touches the creative process," says Dietsch. To make such an ambitious open‑world game feasible, the studio invested heavily in internal tooling from day one.
"If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and building the tools that would later allow the world to expand without collapsing under its own complexity. The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect those tools.
"Krafton and Lifelike’s investment funds were used to finance development, essentially making the game self‑funded," Wendschuh notes. While a modest amount of project finance is now being allocated for marketing, the core development budget came entirely from the equity partners.
This arrangement aligns investor incentives with the studio’s ethos of building reusable tools rather than cutting corners. When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—Dietsch is unequivocal: the studio does not employ AI for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Turning development over to an AI would defeat why we get up every morning," he says.
Wendschuh adds that the team only uses AI for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting, never for art, design, or writing. Interestingly, Krafton, which markets itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by 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. "Even as a tiny indie, we felt it was vital to keep everything hand‑made," Dietsch emphasizes.
This philosophy reflects a broader belief that AI threatens jobs for voice actors, artists, and other creatives—a concern shared by many in the industry. Dietsch also highlights a key advantage of games over film: immediacy. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and extensive pre‑production. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and instantly visualized.
This rapid feedback loop fuels the team’s iterative process and keeps the creative energy high. Wendschuh points out that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, high‑stakes set work and a reliance on a few marquee names to secure studio backing.
While anyone can technically shoot a movie with a backyard camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. Game development, however, has fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without A‑list talent, making the medium more accessible for independent creators. Both founders agree that the core creative impulse—telling stories and delivering experiences—remains the same across mediums. "When I was six, I wanted to make either games or movies; it came down to a coin toss and maybe getting a camera for Christmas," Dietsch reflects.
He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, cementing a lifelong passion for interactive storytelling. Whether through film or interactive play, the goal is to engage audiences, convey narratives, and evoke emotion—a timeless pursuit that continues to drive Wolf Haus’s ambitious, small‑team adventure.