The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers zip around on pigs, wielding machine guns, before the screen erupts into a vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What viewers didn’t see was the infamous "snake gun" – a weapon that, according to Wolf Haus Games’ CEO and creative director Joe Dietsch, was born from a child’s off‑hand suggestion.
"One of our team member’s sons asked, ‘What if there was a snake‑shooting gun?’" Dietsch recalls. "Because we had built a modular gun system, I could crank out a prototype in about thirty minutes. The kid went wild, and the weapon stayed in the final build." That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit of Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit AI followers or friends into a 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates why Wolf Haus leans heavily on bespoke tools and a tightly knit development philosophy.
Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑quality experience with just twelve people.
Most thought we were crazy." The team’s confidence stems from a history of doing big things on shoestring budgets. Abbott grew up in the world of indie film, where making a compelling product with limited resources is the norm.
"We come from indie cinema and we’re used to punching well above our weight," he says. After more than eighty pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took a stake in the studio. Wolf Haus’ founders have deep roots in Hollywood. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of actor‑director Mel Gibson, who later co‑founded the studio.
The pair 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, a production company originally founded by Chris Roberts before his Star Citizen days. He later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments with Unreal Engine.
"The engine was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt blocked by the cost and complexity of creating something myself," he explains. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually settled on the concept of a doomsday cult simulator—a hybrid of survival mechanics and grindhouse cinema that would let him blend his two passions into a single intellectual property.
The initial proof‑of‑concept was deliberately limited, meant to test the technical ceiling before the team hit a wall. Dietsch showed the demo to Abbott, who then introduced it to Dooma, a production partner.
Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had spent a decade writing and producing for film before moving into games. He founded Sekretagent Productions, which supplied narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
In the 2010s 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 a call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back. "I was looking at a video game Joe had made, and it blew my mind.
It convinced me to come out of retirement," he says. He then brought on Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic, as 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.
The studio began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. Despite the market headwinds, the concept generated excitement. The team partnered with CAA in Los Angeles, refined their pitch, and returned to investors in 2024, eventually closing a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand—for opening doors that might otherwise have stayed closed.
Today, Wolf Haus operates with just thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional: "We wanted a studio where every voice matters, where everyone can touch the creative core, and where the final product feels like it was made by a specific, tight‑knit group." To achieve AAA‑level fidelity with a tiny crew, 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 notes.
The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and building the underlying toolchain. This approach not only kept the project from collapsing under its own complexity but also laid the groundwork for future titles. Funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance the development, using the equity capital to cover salaries, tools, and eventually a modest marketing budget.
"Our investors are incentivized to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," says Wendschuh. "Whenever we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a custom tool. It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables us to deliver a massive open‑world experience with a handful of people." When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—the team was unequivocal: they do not rely on it for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate core content would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," Dietsch says. Wendschuh adds that the studio only uses AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton, which has publicly branded itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant.
The studio’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and voice work. The six‑kilometre‑square map of Join Us was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. "That was non‑negotiable for us," Dietsch affirms.
Dietsch also reflects on the differences between filmmaking and game development. In film, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent.
In games, an idea can be prototyped within hours and iterated upon directly in the engine. "You can have a concept in the morning and see it live by afternoon," he says, describing the immediacy that keeps him energized. Wendschuh notes that while film production is heavily front‑loaded—requiring star power and studio green‑lights—games face fewer gatekeepers. "Anyone can rent a camera and shoot a backyard movie, but without big names or distribution, it’s hard to break through.
A game, however, can reach an audience much more easily because the barriers are lower," he explains. 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 movies or games.
It boiled down to a coin toss and getting a camera for Christmas. I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been straddling both worlds," Dietsch says.
"Whether it’s a film or a game, you’re crafting an experience, telling a story, and engaging the audience. The tools change, but the purpose stays the same."