You may remember catching the Join Us trailer during the Xbox Showcase in June. The clip introduced a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator, featuring robed followers riding on pigs, firing machine guns, and culminating in a shot of massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What wasn’t shown was the infamous snake gun, a detail that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, proudly points out.
"One of the team members’ kids came up with the idea of a snake‑shooting weapon," Dietsch recounts. "He asked, ‘What if there’s a snake gun?’ Because we have a modular weapon system, I was able to prototype it in roughly thirty minutes.
Seeing his face light up was amazing, and the snake gun stayed in the final build." That anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to their retro‑70s cult. It also illustrates the studio’s tech‑first mindset, which has allowed a small crew to craft a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, explains their philosophy: "We set out to be disruptors.
We told ourselves we could achieve what a hundred‑person studio does with just twelve people. Everyone thought we were crazy, but our background in indie film taught us to punch well above our weight." The team’s journey to funding was a marathon of pitches—about eighty in total—before finally landing equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital. Both investors took a stake in Wolf Haus, giving the studio the financial breathing room it needed.
Wolf Haus’s leadership is steeped in Hollywood history. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University in California, where he met 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, a production company founded by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. The seed of Join Us sprouted when Dietsch began experimenting in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games.
The biggest barrier felt like the cost and complexity of creating something yourself. I started watching YouTube tutorials and tinkering with the engine," he says. Despite having no formal game‑dev background, Dietsch built a few small prototypes before committing to a larger vision.
"I kept circling back to a doomsday cult simulator because it merged my love for survival mechanics and grindhouse cinema, essentially fusing my film and gaming passions into a single IP." He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, anticipating that at some point technical limitations would force him to stop. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter immediately took it to Dooma, a partner studio.
Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously worked as a producer and screenwriter in film before transitioning to games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative work 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 roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After cashing out, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire and enjoy a quiet life.
Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, a call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back. "I was told a friend had made a video game. I watched the demo, and it blew my mind. It convinced me to step out of retirement," Wendschuh recalls.
He then introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former vice‑president at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet. Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a veteran programmer from Ubisoft Montreal, to serve as chief technology officer.
With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing—a task made tougher by a market downturn that began in mid‑2023. "People liked what we were building, but the timing was challenging," Dietsch says.
The studio initially reached out on its own, then partnered with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles for broader outreach. After a second round of pitches in 2024, they secured seed funding from Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh believes CAA’s representation, which also covers titles like 007: First Light, was pivotal, as were the industry veterans on the team.
"Derek Douglas, our CAA agent, had represented me for twelve years and previously ran the video‑game department at William Morris," Wendschuh notes. What truly sets Join Us apart is its production model: a full‑time staff of just thirteen.
Dietsch explains the deliberate choice to stay lean: "We wanted a small‑team culture where every voice matters and everyone can touch the creative side. It feels like a game made by a tight‑knit group rather than a faceless corporation." To make such an ambitious open‑world title feasible with a tiny crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person.
We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a large map without the project collapsing under its own weight," Dietsch says. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and engineering the tools that would support it—tools that the studio plans to reuse for future projects.
The funding structure also gave the team breathing room to perfect these tools. "Krafton and Lifelike are equity partners, so their investment essentially self‑funded the game.
We’ve started to take on a modest amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development was covered by their equity," Wendschuh explains. "Equity investors care about the studio’s long‑term value, so they encourage us to build robust tools even if it slows immediate progress." When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—Dietsch gives a clear answer: none is used in the creative pipeline. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Turning development over to an AI would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," he says. Wendschuh adds that the studio only uses AI for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting, never for art, design, or writing.
Even Krafton, which has branded itself as an “AI‑first” company, insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative process. "Our investors wanted assurance we weren’t relying on AI to produce the game," Wendschuh notes, echoing a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑backed studio. The team’s commitment to handcrafted content is evident. The six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us was built entirely by hand, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors.
"That level of human‑generated content mattered to us, even as a small indie studio," Dietsch affirms. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and games. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and massive budgets before a director sees it on set.
In contrast, a game idea can be prototyped within hours: "You can have a concept in the morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly. That immediacy is exhilarating." Wendschuh points out that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense pre‑production phases focused on securing high‑profile talent to green‑light a project.
While anyone can technically shoot a movie with a camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. Games, however, have far fewer gatekeepers. "You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game. The barriers to entry are lower, which democratizes the medium," he says.
Both men agree that storytelling is the core driver, regardless of medium. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It boiled down to a coin toss and whether I got a camera for Christmas. I learned programming on a TI‑83, so the passion has always been there.
Whether you’re crafting a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. The medium changes, but the creative impulse stays the same."