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 preview, robed cultists ride pigs while firing machine guns, culminating in a nightmarish vision of Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a quirky weapon that originated from an unexpected source, explains Joe Dietsch, CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games. "One of the developers’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’" Dietsch recalls.
"We had a modular weapon system, so within half an hour I built a gun that launches snakes. The kid was thrilled, and the weapon stayed in the game." This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title where players can recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult.
It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, describes the team’s ambition: "We set out to be disruptors. Everyone told us a twelve‑person studio couldn’t deliver a game of this scope, but we knew from indie filmmaking that a lean crew can punch well above its weight." After 80 pitch meetings, the studio finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the company.
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 films 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 shift to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us began as a personal experiment in Unreal Engine. "I discovered Unreal was free to download and started tinkering after watching YouTube tutorials," Dietsch says. Though he had no formal training, he built a few small prototypes before committing to a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that fuses survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He created a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the pair took it to Dooma for further development.
Dooma Wendschuh, the studio’s chief financial officer and narrative director, entered the gaming world after a career as a film producer and screenwriter. In the early 2000s he founded Sekretagent Productions, providing writing services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
Later, he built several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. However, a call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry.
"I was looking at the game Joe had made, and it blew my mind," Wendschuh recounts. He introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former VP 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, formerly a programmer at Ubisoft Montreal, to serve as chief technology officer. Funding proved challenging amid a market downturn in 2023. The team began pitching that summer, receiving positive reactions but facing a skeptical environment.
After securing representation from Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, they renewed their pitch efforts in 2024 and eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—and the involvement of veterans like Schneider and Chartrand—for opening doors. Despite the high‑profile backers, the studio remains tiny: only 13 full‑time staff members.
"We entered the project with a clear sense of scope and a desire to keep the team intimate," says Dietsch. "Everyone has a voice, everyone contributes creatively, and the game feels like a product of this specific group." To make such an ambitious title possible with a small crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling early on. "Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains.
"We built a robust toolkit so that when features proliferate across the open world, the project doesn’t collapse under its own weight. A large portion of the first year was spent simultaneously designing gameplay and engineering the tools that would enable it." The equity financing model gave the studio the runway to perfect those tools. "Krafton and Lifelike’s investment funds the development directly, essentially making the game self‑funded," Wendschuh notes. "We’re now adding a modest amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development has been covered by our equity partners." One of the benefits of equity funding, according to Wendschuh, is that investors share the studio’s goal of increasing enterprise value, which aligns with Wolf Haus’s tool‑centric ethos.
"Whenever we hit a problem we can’t solve, we build a tool to address it," he says. "It may slow us down in the short term, but it lets a tiny team deliver a game of this scale." When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they avoid it in creative production. "We believe a human touch is essential for games," Dietsch asserts.
"Using AI to generate content would defeat the purpose of why we love making games in the first place." Wendschuh adds, "We do use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, but never for design, art, or narrative." Even Krafton, which has branded itself as an "AI‑first" company, discouraged Wolf Haus from employing generative AI in the creative pipeline. This mirrors Krafton‑owned Neon Giant’s public stance that it does not participate in the company’s AI pivot. Both studios emphasize preserving jobs for voice actors, artists, and other creatives. Join Us’s six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely handcrafted, and its 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—an intentional choice for a small indie studio that values authenticity.
Dietsch reflects on the contrast between film and game development. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and extensive pre‑production.
In games, an idea can be prototyped within hours, allowing immediate iteration. "You can have a concept in the morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly," he says, describing the exhilarating immediacy of interactive media. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, high‑stakes set work and a reliance on securing a few high‑profile talents to greenlight a project.
While anyone can shoot a low‑budget movie with a backyard camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. By contrast, games have fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without A‑list actors or directors.
Both founders agree that storytelling is the common thread between the mediums. "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," Dietsch recalls. He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, blending his love for both crafts. "Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re creating an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience.
The core purpose doesn’t change."