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 charge on pig‑mounted platforms, firing an arsenal of weapons before the screen fades to a massive, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a quirky weapon that was added after a junior developer’s son suggested the idea. According to Joe Dietsch, CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the team was able to prototype a functional snake‑shooting gun in roughly thirty minutes using an internal tool that allows rapid weapon scaling.
The result was a memorable, off‑beat feature that remains in the game today. That anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, player‑driven experience Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox survival where you can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up the team’s philosophy: “We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑level game with just twelve people, and they laughed.” Their confidence stems from a history of doing big things on shoestring budgets, a habit forged in the indie‑film world where they learned to punch well above their weight. The Wolf Haus founders bring deep Hollywood pedigree to the table.
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 is the son of veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company started by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention to Star Citizen. Abbott’s résumé also includes producing credits on movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
This blend of cinematic experience and entrepreneurial grit set the stage for their venture into interactive entertainment. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. “Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge,” he explains. He taught himself the engine 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 and grindhouse cinema that merged his two passions into a single intellectual property.
The proof‑of‑concept was modest but ambitious. Dietsch assumed he would eventually hit a technical wall, but when he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter immediately recognized its potential and took it to Dooma, a partner studio. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, arrived from a film background, having produced and written for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins through his own writing house, Sekretagent Productions. In the 2010s he founded several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis‑formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into game development. Impressed by the Join Us demo, Wendschuh recruited former Warner Bros. Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor, and Schneider brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing. The studio began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. Initial reactions were positive—people liked the concept—but securing capital proved difficult.
After a series of pitches and the involvement of Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Wolf Haus closed a seed round with equity from Krafton and Lifelike Capital. The partnership with CAA, which also represents titles like 007: First Light, proved instrumental, as did the credibility lent by veteran advisors Schneider and Chartrand. Despite the influx of capital, Wolf Haus deliberately kept the development team tiny—13 full‑time staff at its peak.
Dietsch emphasizes that a small, tight‑knit group ensures everyone has a voice and can directly influence the creative direction. To make a large‑scale open world feasible for such a lean crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early in production. "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 internal toolset that would later allow the world to expand without collapsing under its own complexity. The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s investments were used to self‑fund the game, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing.
This structure aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the team to continue building reusable tools that can serve future projects. When asked about the role of generative AI—a hot topic in game development—both Dietsch and Wendschuh were unequivocal: the studio does not employ AI for any creative tasks.
"We believe a human touch is essential," Dietsch says. "We use AI only for mundane tasks like calendar management and email replies, never for designing assets or writing dialogue." Interestingly, Krafton, which has publicly positioned itself as an "AI‑first" company, specifically required that Wolf Haus refrain from using generative AI in its creative pipeline. This stance mirrors that of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly denied any AI‑driven development.
The commitment to handcrafted content is evident throughout Join Us. The six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely hand‑built, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by professional actors—no synthetic voices were employed. This dedication to artisanal production reflects the studio’s broader philosophy of valuing creative labor over automated shortcuts.
Dietsch also reflects on the differences between filmmaking and game development. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent to secure a studio green‑light. By contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single day, allowing creators to iterate rapidly and see results immediately. Wendschuh adds that while film production is heavily front‑loaded—intense on set but dependent on securing A‑list talent—games face fewer gatekeepers.
"You don’t need a Hollywood star or a famous director to make a successful game," he says, noting that the democratization of distribution platforms gives indie developers a realistic chance at commercial success. Both men agree that the core drive behind their work, whether in film or games, is storytelling and delivering an experience that engages the audience.
Dietsch recalls his childhood ambition to make either movies or games, a choice that ultimately hinged on a coin toss and a Christmas camera. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, cementing a lifelong passion for interactive media.
"Whether you’re making a movie or a game, you’re trying to tell a story and give people an experience," he concludes, underscoring the shared creative impulse that unites the two mediums.