The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers zip around on pigs, wield machine guns, and ultimately confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like 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 off‑hand suggestion. "My team member’s son asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a modular weapon system, so I whipped up a prototype in about thirty minutes.
The kid was thrilled, and the weapon stayed in the game," Dietsch recalls. This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us – an open‑world sandbox survival experience 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 allowed a tiny crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, sums up the ambition: "We set out to be disruptors. We told ourselves we could build something massive with just twelve people, and everyone else called us crazy." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where small budgets often demand creative resourcefulness.
After 80 pitch meetings, the studio finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving the project the financial backing it needed while preserving its independent spirit. The founders’ Hollywood credentials run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, the 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, a production company started by Chris Roberts before his shift to the Star Citizen universe.
Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. These cinematic roots inform the game’s narrative flair and its emphasis on visual storytelling. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
"I discovered that Unreal was free to download and started tinkering with it after watching countless YouTube tutorials," he explains. Although he had never built a game before, he managed to produce a few small prototypes before committing to a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that melds survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the duo began to flesh out the concept further. The studio’s narrative director and CFO, Dooma Wendschuh, brings a unique blend of film and tech experience. After a career as a producer and screenwriter, he founded Sekretagent Productions, providing story work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
He later sold a cannabis‑formulation company, Ebbu, for roughly C$430 million. Following that windfall, 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 into game development when he saw a demo that “blew his mind.” Wendschuh then recruited former Warner Bros. Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor and hired Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer.
Securing funding proved challenging amid a broader industry downturn. The team began pitching in summer 2023, initially receiving polite interest but little commitment. After partnering with CAA in Los Angeles and refining their pitch, they returned to investors in 2024 and finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—and the presence of veterans like Schneider and Chartrand—for opening doors that might otherwise have remained closed.
Despite the high‑profile backing, Wolf Haus has remained a lean operation, employing only thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that this small‑team model allows every employee to have a voice and directly shape the creative direction. To make such an ambitious open‑world game feasible, the studio invested heavily in internal tooling from day one. "Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," he says.
The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and constructing the pipelines that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight. This tool‑centric philosophy extends to future titles, ensuring the studio can iterate quickly without ballooning staff numbers.
The equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike has been pivotal. Because the investors own a stake in Wolf Haus, the money they provide is treated as internal financing rather than a traditional publisher advance.
This arrangement gives the team the freedom to build extensive tools without the pressure of immediate commercial deadlines. "Our investors want the studio to increase its enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," Wendschuh explains.
While this approach may slow short‑term development, it enables a small crew to deliver a game of Join Us’s scope. When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not rely on it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential in game development," Dietsch states. The only AI they employ assists with mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Interestingly, Krafton—publicly positioning itself as an “AI‑first” company—specifically required that Wolf Haus refrain from using generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. All of Join Us’s assets, including its six‑kilometre‑square map and roughly 15,000 voice lines, were handcrafted by human artists and actors. Dietsch sees this as a core value proposition: "Even as a tiny indie studio, we wanted every element to feel authentic and human‑made." Transitioning from film to games has given Dietsch a sense of immediacy he never experienced on a movie set. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring countless approvals before a single frame is shot.
In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a morning, dropped into the engine, and instantly visualized. Wendschuh notes that while film production is front‑loaded with high‑stakes negotiations for A‑list talent, games have far fewer gatekeepers. "You don’t need a Hollywood star or a famous director to make a successful game," he says, highlighting the democratizing power of interactive media. Both mediums, however, share a common creative drive: storytelling and immersion.
Dietsch reflects on his childhood, when a coin toss decided whether he’d pursue movies or games. Whether through a camera or a keyboard, his goal has always been to craft experiences that engage audiences and tell compelling stories.
Join Us stands as a testament to that ambition, proving that a handful of passionate creators—armed with the right tools and a willingness to defy conventional wisdom—can build a game that feels both epic in scale and intimate in execution.