The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, giving viewers a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation. In the clip, robed followers charge on pig‑mounted platforms, wielding machine guns before the scene culminates in a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like tangle of tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final edit was the infamous "snake gun," a quirky weapon that emerged from an unexpected source, according to Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games. "One of the team members’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a modular gun system that let us prototype a new weapon in about thirty minutes.
I built a snake‑gun on the fly and it blew his mind. It’s still in the game today," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us – an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers or team up with friends to run a 1970s‑style cult.
It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a visually rich, high‑fidelity experience to be built by a surprisingly small crew. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up the ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve people can do this.’ Most people laughed and said it was impossible." The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets. "Our roots are in indie filmmaking, where you constantly have to punch above your weight," Abbott explains.
After 80 pitch meetings, 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 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 his transition to Star Citizen.
Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge," he says.
He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—a concept that married his passions for movies and games into a single intellectual property. The initial proof‑of‑concept was a rough‑around‑the‑edges demo that Dietsch showed to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously produced and written for films before moving into games in the early 2000s, founding Sekretagent Productions, which supplied narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
Wendschuh later built several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, sold for roughly C$430 million. After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, planning a quiet retirement. Yet, as Hollywood lore would have it, a call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back.
"I was looking at a video game Joe had made, and it completely blew my mind. That’s what got me out of retirement," Wendschuh says. He introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, who became a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer.
With a core team forming, the next hurdle was financing—a challenge amplified by a market downturn that began in 2023. The studio pitched throughout the summer, initially without representation. After signing with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, they returned to the pitch circuit in 2024 and eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits CAA’s influence and the involvement of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors that might otherwise have stayed shut.
Despite the high‑profile backing, Wolf Haus has deliberately kept its staff lean—just thirteen full‑time members. "We entered the project with a clear sense of scope and a desire 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 title feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset. "Every system needs to be scalable and debuggable by a single developer.
We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a massive map without the project collapsing under its own weight," he explains. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and constructing the internal tools that would sustain future growth. The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools.
"Krafton and Lifelike’s investments have essentially self‑funded the game. We’re now adding a small amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development has been covered by their equity stakes," Wendschuh notes. This arrangement aligns investor incentives with the studio’s ethos of building reusable tools rather than chasing short‑term milestones.
When asked about the role of generative AI—a hot topic in the industry—Dietsch gave a decisive answer: the studio does not use AI for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential. Handing creative decisions over to an algorithm would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," he says.
Wendschuh adds that while the team may use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management, it never touches design, art, or narrative. Interestingly, Krafton, which markets itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring similar statements from other Krafton‑owned studios.
The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—a point the team emphasizes even as an indie studio.
Dietsch contrasts the immediacy of game development with the protracted timelines of filmmaking. "In film, you write an idea, wait years for greenlight, then shoot.
In games, you can prototype a concept in a morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly. That speed is exhilarating." Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, requiring star talent and studio approval before anything can happen.
While anyone can shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without marquee names or distribution is rare. By contrast, the game industry has fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without A‑list actors or directors. Both mediums, however, share a core creative impulse: telling stories and delivering experiences that resonate with audiences. In summary, Wolf Haus’s journey from Hollywood film roots and a lucrative cannabis exit to a tightly‑run, tool‑centric game studio illustrates how a clear vision, disciplined engineering, and strategic funding can enable a twelve‑person team to produce a large‑scale, high‑quality title without relying on generative AI.
Join Us stands as a testament to what can be achieved when a small, passionate group leverages its diverse background, builds the right infrastructure, and stays true to a handcrafted, human‑centric approach to game creation.