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 teaser, robed followers zip around on pig‑drawn carts, wielding machine guns, before the screen cuts to an image of massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One of the most memorable, yet omitted, moments is the appearance of a "snake gun," a weapon that literally fires serpents. Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, explains that the idea came from a team member’s child, who asked, "Can there be a snake gun?" Using a rapid‑prototyping tool, Dietsch was able to construct the weapon in roughly half an hour, delighting the youngster and cementing the quirky weapon in the final game.
This anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players 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 traditionally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, says the team set out to be "disruptors," aiming to prove that a dozen developers could deliver a game of this scope.
"Everyone told us it was impossible," Abbott recalls, "but we’ve spent our careers in indie film, learning to punch far above our weight, so we knew it could be done." Wolf Haus’s founders bring deep Hollywood connections to the table. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, the son of actor‑director 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 originally founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to the Star Citizen universe. Abbott also produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
These cinematic pedigrees inform the studio’s storytelling sensibility and its comfort with small‑budget, high‑impact projects. The genesis of Join Us began with Dietsch experimenting in Unreal Engine.
"Unreal Engine was free to download, and I’d always loved games," he says. "It felt like there was a massive barrier to actually creating something, so I started watching YouTube tutorials and tinkering on my own." Without prior development experience, Dietsch built a few modest prototypes before committing to a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He created a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming it would eventually hit a technical wall. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and introduced it to Dooma, a partner studio that helped refine the concept.
The financial side of the venture was spearheaded by Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh. Wendschuh’s career began in film as a producer and screenwriter before he pivoted to games in the early 2000s, founding Sekretagent Productions, which supplied writing talent for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. He later launched 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 game development after he saw Dietsch’s demo and was "blown away." Wendschuh recruited veteran game executive Reid Schneider—formerly a vice president at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet—as a strategic advisor. Schneider then brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With this leadership team in place, Wolf Haus began a rigorous pitching campaign in the summer of 2023, a period marked by an industry downturn. Despite the challenging climate, the team’s unique blend of film experience, tech expertise, and a compelling demo attracted interest. After multiple rounds of pitching and the assistance of Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Wolf Haus secured seed funding from Kraftor and Lifelike Capital, both taking equity stakes in the studio. The partnership with CAA—also representing titles such as 007: First Light—proved instrumental, as did the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand.
"My agent at CAA, Derek Douglas, was also my agent when I spent twelve years making games," Wendschuh notes, emphasizing the value of established industry relationships. What truly sets Join Us apart is the way it is being built: a team of just 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch explains that from day one the studio defined the project’s scope and deliberately kept the team small to preserve a collaborative atmosphere where "everyone has a voice and touches the creative process." To make such an ambitious open‑world title feasible with limited manpower, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling early in development. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch says.
The studio devoted a significant portion of the first year to building a robust toolkit that would allow features to expand across a six‑kilometre‑square map without causing the project to collapse under its own weight. Funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed the studio to self‑finance the development, with the equity partners providing capital that covered the bulk of production costs. While the studio has begun to explore project finance for marketing purposes, the core development was entirely funded by these investors.
"Equity funding aligns our investors’ incentives with the studio’s long‑term value," Wendschuh explains. "They support our tool‑building ethos because it ultimately creates a more valuable studio." In an era where many studios tout generative AI as a shortcut, Wolf Haus has deliberately avoided using AI for creative work. "We don’t use generative AI at all in the game’s creation," Dietsch states.
"We believe a human touch is essential; handing development over to an algorithm would defeat the purpose of why we love making games." Wendschuh adds that while the team may use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management or email drafting, it never touches the artistic side of production. Interestingly, Krafton—despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company—insisted that Wolf Haus not employ generative AI in its creative pipeline, echoing similar stances from other Krafton‑owned studios such as Neon Giant. The studio’s commitment to handcrafted content is evident in the game’s massive map, which was manually designed, and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors. "Even as a tiny indie, we felt it was crucial to keep that human element," Dietsch says.
Dietsch also reflects on the differences between filmmaking and game development. In film, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent before a studio greenlights the project.
By contrast, game development offers immediacy: "You can have an idea this morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly. That instant feedback loop is exhilarating." Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, short‑term bursts of activity on set, whereas games allow for more iterative, ongoing creation without the same gatekeepers. "Anyone can rent a camera and shoot a backyard movie, but without star power or distribution, it’s hard to achieve success.
In games, the barriers are lower; you don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a hit." Both founders agree that, at their core, making movies and making games share the same creative impulse: delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. Dietsch recalls that as a child he wanted to make either movies or games, and a simple coin toss and a Christmas camera set him on his path. "Whether it’s film or interactive media, the goal is the same—crafting an experience that resonates with people," he concludes.