The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation. In the preview, robed followers zip around on pigs, brandishing machine guns, before the screen fades to a massive, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake‑gun, a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a child’s imagination.
"My team member’s son asked if we could make a gun that fired snakes," Dietsch recalls. "We have a rapid‑prototyping tool, so within about thirty minutes I built a functional snake‑gun.
The kid went nuts, and we kept it in the game." This anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox 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 crew to produce a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a game of this scope with just twelve people. Most people laughed and said it was impossible." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where small crews routinely punch far above their budgetary weight. After 80 pitches, the studio 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 actor Mel Gibson—who later co‑founded Wolf Haus and 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 started 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.
"The engine was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a huge barrier to creating my own," he explains. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few small prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday cult simulator—a concept that merged his love for survival mechanics, grindhouse cinema, and the narrative freedom of games.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the duo took the concept to Dooma, a development partner. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, entered the gaming world after a career in film production and screenwriting. 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 (US$330 million).
After cashing out, he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a sudden call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back: "I saw the demo Joe made and it blew my mind, so I came out of retirement to help." Wendschuh then recruited Reid Schneider, former Warner Bros. Games VP and now head of Raccoon Logic, as a strategic advisor, and brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. Funding proved challenging during an industry downturn that began in mid‑2023.
The team pitched relentlessly, eventually signing with CAA in Los Angeles and re‑pitching in 2024. Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton provided a seed round.
Abbott notes that CAA’s representation—also handling titles like 007: First Light—combined with the credibility of veterans Schneider and Chartrand to open doors that might otherwise have stayed closed. Despite the high aspirations, Join Us is being built by just 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model was intentional: "We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership over the final product." To make such an ambitious open‑world feasible, the studio invested heavily in internal tooling from day one. "Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch says.
"We spent the first year ideating the game while simultaneously building the tools that would let a tiny team expand the world without it collapsing under its own weight." The equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. "Our investors are motivated to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," Wendschuh explains. "When we hit a problem we can’t solve, we simply create a tool to address it.
It may slow us down short‑term, but it enables us to achieve a scope that would otherwise require a much larger crew." When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not use it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential in game development," Dietsch states.
"We have a few subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management, but nothing that influences design, art, or writing." Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, also insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, aligning with the studio’s philosophy of preserving jobs for voice actors, artists, and other creatives. All 15,000 voice lines in Join Us were recorded by human performers, and the six‑kilometre‑square map was handcrafted. Dietsch reflects on the contrast between film and games: "In film, an idea can sit on paper for years before you ever see it on set, and you need to convince studios, directors, and actors to green‑light it. With games, you can prototype an idea in the morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly.
That immediacy is intoxicating." Wendschuh adds that filmmaking is heavily front‑loaded, requiring high‑profile talent to secure financing, whereas games have fewer gatekeepers. "You don’t need an A‑list star or director to make a successful game; the barriers to entry are lower, which makes the odds of success higher for indie teams." Both founders agree that, regardless of medium, the core goal remains 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—it came down to a coin toss and maybe getting a camera for Christmas," Dietsch smiles. "I learned to program on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been straddling both worlds.
In the end, it’s about delivering an experience that resonates, whether through film or interactive play."