The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult‑simulation. In the clip, robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with an image of gigantic, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make it onto the screen was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was inspired by a child’s imagination.
"One of our team member’s sons asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new firearm in under thirty minutes, so I built one that literally shoots snakes. The kid went nuts, and we kept it in the final build," Dietsch recalls.
This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op—to join a 1970s‑style cult. It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first philosophy, which has enabled a high‑fidelity, content‑rich experience to be produced by an exceptionally small crew. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, describes the team’s ambition as deliberately disruptive. "We told everyone we could pull off a AAA‑level project with just twelve people.
Most people laughed and called it impossible," he says. Their confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets.
"We come from indie filmmaking, where you learn to stretch every dollar and wear multiple hats," Abbott adds. After an arduous 80‑pitch marathon, the studio finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who later co‑founded Wolf Haus and co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie features Happy Hunting and Manifest West.
Abbott is the son of renowned makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company started by Chris Roberts before his transition to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. This blend of cinematic expertise and entrepreneurial grit set the tone for the studio’s cross‑media ambitions.
Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "I discovered Unreal was free to download and started learning from YouTube tutorials," he explains.
Though he had never built a game before, he managed to create a few small prototypes before committing to a larger vision. The concept—a doomsday cult simulator that fuses survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—allowed him to merge his love of movies and games into a single intellectual property. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo and shared it with Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma.
Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s, contributing writing to titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Wendschuh later 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.
Wendschuh was immediately impressed by Dietsch’s demo and brought it to Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games VP now heading 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 this core team in place, Wolf Haus turned its attention to financing. Pitching began in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. "People liked what we were showing, but the market was tight," Dietsch notes. The studio enlisted the representation of CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Los Angeles, leveraged those connections, and continued pitching throughout 2024 until Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed the seed round.
Wendschuh credits CAA’s clout—its roster includes titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of seasoned veterans such as Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors that might otherwise have remained shut. Despite the high‑profile backing, the development team remains remarkably lean: only 13 full‑time staff members. "We entered the project with a crystal‑clear understanding of scope, and we wanted to preserve a small‑team culture where every voice matters and everyone can touch the creative core," says Dietsch.
To make such an ambitious open‑world sandbox feasible, the studio invested heavily in bespoke tooling from the outset. "Every system must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," he explains. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and building the internal tools that would later allow the team to expand features across a six‑kilometre‑square map without the project collapsing under its own weight.
The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools. "Krafton and Lifelike’s capital funded the entire development, making the game essentially self‑funded," Wendschuh says. The studio also tapped modest project‑finance for marketing later on, but the core development never relied on external loans. This structure aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the team to continue building reusable tools even when they temporarily slow down feature delivery.
When asked about generative AI, a hot topic in the industry, Dietsch gives a concise answer: "We don’t use any generative AI in the creative process. The human touch is essential to us." Wendschuh adds that the team only employs AI for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Interestingly, Krafton—publicly positioning itself as an "AI‑first" company—specifically required that Wolf Haus not incorporate generative AI into game creation as a condition of its investment. This mirrors a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant, which publicly denied using AI for its own titles. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game's world and audio.
The six‑kilometre‑square map was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. Dietsch believes this authenticity is crucial, even for an indie‑scale project. Dietsch also contrasts the immediacy of game development with the lengthy gestation periods typical of film.
"In movies, you write a script, wait years for financing, casting, and production, then finally see the result," he says. "In games, you can have an idea this morning, drop it into the engine, and see it in action by afternoon.
That instant feedback loop is exhilarating." Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, requiring star power and studio approval before a project can move forward. While anyone can technically shoot a low‑budget film, breaking through without marquee names or distribution is rare.
By contrast, the video‑game landscape has fewer gatekeepers, making it easier for small teams to achieve commercial success without A‑list talent. Both founders agree that the core creative impulse—telling a story and delivering an experience—remains the same across mediums. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games; a coin toss and a Christmas camera decided the path," Dietsch reflects. "Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re crafting an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience.
The tools change, but the mission stays identical."