The buzz around Join Us first erupted when its trailer lit up the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse into a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. The teaser showed robed disciples charging on pig‑back, wielding machine guns, and culminating in a nightmarish vision of Cthulhu‑like tentacles. Yet one of the most memorable moments—an absurd snake‑shooting weapon—was omitted from the public cut. According to Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the snake gun was a spontaneous addition born from a child’s curiosity.
"One of our team members’ sons asked if we could make a gun that fires snakes," Dietsch recalls with a grin. "We had a modular weapon system that let us prototype a new gun in about thirty minutes. I built it on the fly, and his reaction was pure amazement.
It stuck around in the final build." That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us. The game is an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or other players in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult. The design philosophy hinges on freedom, absurdity, and a willingness to let wild ideas flourish.
It also reflects Wolf Haus’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title to be produced by a remarkably small crew. Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We set out to be disruptors. While everyone assumed you needed a hundred‑person team, we believed twelve could do the job." The team’s confidence wasn’t unfounded. Many of the founders came from indie‑film backgrounds where resourcefulness is a daily requirement.
"We grew up punching far above our weight on tiny budgets," Abbott explains. Their persistence paid off after eighty pitch meetings, eventually securing equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital.
Both investors took a stake in Wolf Haus, providing the financial runway needed for development. Wolf Haus’s leadership is steeped in Hollywood pedigree. 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, meanwhile, 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 movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx, further cementing the studio’s cinematic roots. The genesis of Join Us traces back to Dietsch’s early experiments with Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games, but creating one felt like a massive barrier," he says. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually settled on the concept of a doomsday cult simulator—a mash‑up of survival mechanics, grindhouse aesthetics, and his favorite film tropes.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, shared it with Abbott, and the duo began pitching the vision. The narrative side of the studio is anchored by Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director. Wendschuh’s career began in film production and screenwriting before transitioning to games in the early 2000s, founding Sekretagent Productions, which supplied writing talent for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
In the 2010s he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After that windfall, he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a call from former roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into development, leading him to evaluate Dietsch’s demo and ultimately join the project.
Wendschuh recruited seasoned industry veterans to strengthen the team. He brought in Reid Schneider, a former vice president at Warner Bros. Games now heading Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet, as a strategic advisor. Schneider, in turn, hired Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With this core in place, Wolf Haus turned its attention to funding—a daunting task given the market downturn of 2023‑2024. Pitching during that slump proved challenging. "People liked the concept, but the timing was rough," Dietsch notes. The studio eventually partnered with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, leveraging the agency’s connections to secure a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Wendschuh credits CAA’s representation—also handling titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of veteran advisors for smoothing the path. Despite the high‑profile backing, the development team remains lean: thirteen full‑time staff members.
This intentional size fosters a collaborative atmosphere where every voice matters and creative ownership is shared. To make a sprawling, open‑world title feasible with such a small crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from day one.
"Every system must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and building the internal tools that would later enable the world to expand without collapsing under its own weight. The funding structure further supports this tool‑centric approach.
Krafton and Lifelike’s equity stakes mean the studio can self‑finance the core development, using additional project finance only for marketing later on. "Equity partners want the studio to increase its enterprise value, so they encourage us to build robust tools," says Wendschuh.
"When we hit a problem we can’t solve, we simply create a tool to address it. It may slow us down in the short term, but it lets a tiny team achieve something that would normally require dozens of engineers." In an industry increasingly buzzing about generative AI, Wolf Haus deliberately steers clear of it for creative work. "We don’t use generative AI in development," Dietsch affirms. "The human touch is essential to us.
We love making games ourselves; handing the creative process to an algorithm would defeat the purpose." Wendschuh adds that the studio does use AI only for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting, not for any artistic or design decisions. Interestingly, Krafton—a company that has publicly positioned itself as “AI‑first”—insisted that Wolf Haus avoid AI in the creative pipeline as a condition of their investment, aligning with the studio’s philosophy and echoing similar stances from other Krafton‑owned studios such as Neon Giant.
The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometer‑square map of Join Us is entirely hand‑built, and the title features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. Dietsch emphasizes that even as an indie project, preserving that level of human performance was non‑negotiable. Comparing his experiences in film and games, Dietsch highlights the immediacy of interactive media.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and extensive pre‑production. "You write a script, wait three or five years, then finally get on set," he says. By contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours. "You can have an idea this morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly.
That rapid feedback loop is exhilarating." Wendschuh points out that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, short‑term bursts of activity followed by long periods of waiting for greenlights and distribution deals. While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without star power or studio backing is rare.
Games, however, have fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without A‑list talent. "We don’t need a famous actor or director to succeed," Wendschuh notes, "the market is more accessible." Both founders agree that the core creative drive—telling stories and delivering experiences—remains the same across mediums. Dietsch recalls his childhood fascination with both cameras and computers, learning to program on a TI‑83 calculator.
Whether through film or interactive entertainment, his goal is to craft compelling narratives that engage audiences. In summary, Wolf Haus’s journey illustrates how a blend of Hollywood know‑how, savvy tech development, and strategic funding can empower a tiny team to produce an ambitious, high‑quality game without relying on generative AI.
Their story underscores the power of human creativity, efficient tooling, and the democratizing potential of the video‑game industry.