The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation where robed followers zip around on pig‑back mounts, fire machine guns, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the cut, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—was the infamous snake‑gun.
"One of the team members’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new weapon in about half an hour, so I built a gun that actually fires snakes. The kid went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls. 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 a 1970s‑style cult.
It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first philosophy, which has enabled a high‑fidelity experience to be assembled by a remarkably small crew. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up the team’s ambition: "We set out to be disruptors. Everyone told us you need a hundred‑person studio to pull off something like this, but we believed twelve could do it." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where small budgets and lean crews are the norm. After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity financing 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 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 his Star Citizen venture. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us originated from Dietsch’s idle experiments in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d been a gamer forever, but creating something felt like a huge barrier.
I started watching YouTube tutorials and tinkering," he says. Despite no prior development experience, Dietsch built a few small prototypes before committing to a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that fuses survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
He built a proof‑of‑concept, showed it to Abbott, and the concept was handed off 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 services 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 C$430 million.
After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry. Wendschuh was impressed by Dietsch’s demo and agreed to join, bringing in Reid Schneider—former VP at Warner Bros.
Games—and Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a veteran Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as strategic advisors and technical leadership. Funding proved challenging amid a market downturn. The team began pitching in summer 2023, received encouragement but also skepticism, and eventually partnered with CAA for representation. Their persistence paid off in 2024 when Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed the seed round.
Wendschuh credits the CAA connection and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors. What truly sets Join Us apart is its production model: a core team of just 13 full‑time staff. "We entered the project with a clear understanding of scope and wanted to keep a tight‑knit environment where everyone’s voice matters," Dietsch explains. To make such an ambitious open‑world game feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on.
"Every system must be scalable and debuggable by a single person. We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a massive map without the project collapsing under its own weight," he adds. This tooling philosophy not only supports Join Us but also lays groundwork for future titles.
The equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑fund development, limiting external pressure and granting the freedom to iterate on tools. "Our investors are motivated by studio valuation, so they support our tool‑building ethos," says Wendschuh. "When we hit a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a tool for it. It may slow us down short‑term, but it enables a small team to deliver a AAA‑level experience." Despite the industry’s hype around generative AI, Wolf Haus deliberately avoids it in creative production.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate core content would undermine why we love making games," Dietsch states. Wendschuh concurs, noting that AI is limited to mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Even Krafton, which recently branded itself an “AI‑first” company, insisted that Wolf Haus refrain from AI‑driven creative work as a condition of their investment.
This mirrors Krafton‑owned Neon Giant’s public denial of AI usage in its pipelines. The commitment to handcrafted content is evident: the six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is entirely hand‑built, and its 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors.
"We wanted a fully human‑crafted world, even as a small indie," Dietsch affirms. Dietsch also reflects on the contrast between film and game development. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring green‑lights from studios and the involvement of high‑profile talent.
In games, an inspiration can be coded and tested within hours, offering immediate feedback and creative control. Wendschuh adds that film production is heavily front‑loaded with gate‑keeping, whereas games have fewer barriers to entry, allowing small teams to achieve success without A‑list names. Both mediums, however, share a core purpose: delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. Dietsch’s childhood ambition to create either movies or games boiled down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera.
He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, and that early love for both crafts has guided his career. Today, Join Us stands as a testament to what a determined, technically savvy, and creatively driven small team can accomplish without relying on generative AI—proving that Hollywood’s disruptive spirit can thrive in the world of interactive entertainment.