The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a hail of gunfire, and eventually confront massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the cut was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that originated from a spontaneous idea by a team member’s son. As Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recounts, "His kid asked, ‘Can there be a snake gun?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool, so within half an hour I built a gun that shoots snakes.
He was blown away, and we kept it in the final build." This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us – an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit followers or invite friends to join a 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a high‑fidelity, content‑rich title to be produced by a remarkably small crew. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors.
We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve talented people can do this.’ Most people laughed, saying it was impossible." Yet the founders’ track records proved otherwise. Coming from indie‑film backgrounds, they were accustomed to punching far above their budgetary weight. After 80 pitches, they finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving Wolf Haus the financial runway to bring Join Us to life.
The founding team’s Hollywood pedigree runs deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson and fellow Wolf Haus co‑founder. Together they 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 his shift to the Star Citizen universe. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ‘84 starring Jamie Foxx.
This blend of cinematic experience and entrepreneurial grit set the tone for Wolf Haus’s approach to game development. Join Us began as a modest experiment in Unreal Engine. "I downloaded Unreal because it was free, and I started tinkering after watching YouTube tutorials," Dietsch explains. Though he had no formal training, he managed to craft a few tiny prototypes before deciding to tackle something larger: a doomsday cult simulator that married survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, ran it past Abbott, and the duo presented it to Dooma, the studio’s early incubator. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, brings a unique blend of film and tech experience. He began as a producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games in the early 2000s, founding Sekretagent Productions, which supplied 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 C$430 million (about $330 million USD).
After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back: "I saw the game Joe had made and it blew my mind, so I came out of retirement to help." He then recruited Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, as a strategic advisor, and brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. Funding proved to be the next hurdle.
The team began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by an industry downturn. "People liked what we were building but the market was tough," says Dietsch. After initial outreach, they partnered with CAA in Los Angeles, refined their pitch, and returned to investors in 2024. Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed a seed round, providing the capital needed to continue development.
Wolf Haus’s lean structure—13 full‑time staff members—means every employee wears multiple hats. "We entered the project with a clear sense of scope and a desire to keep the team small, so everyone has a voice and directly contributes to the creative direction," Dietsch notes.
To make such an ambitious open‑world game feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and constructing the underlying tools that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight.
The equity‑funded model gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect these tools. "Krafton and Lifelike’s investment allowed us to self‑fund the entire development," says Wendschuh. "We’re now using a small amount of project finance for marketing, but the core game was built with their equity capital." This arrangement aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term vision: building reusable tools that can serve future projects, even if it slows immediate progress. When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in the industry—both Dietsch and Wendschuh were unequivocal.
"We don’t use generative AI for any creative work," Dietsch states. "We believe a human touch is essential; handing the creative process over to an algorithm would defeat why we get up in the morning." Wendschuh adds that the studio only employs AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Interestingly, Krafton, which markets itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid AI‑generated content as a condition of their investment, echoing similar stances from other Krafton‑owned studios. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s massive map and voice work.
The six‑kilometre‑square world of Join Us was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. "That was a non‑negotiable for us," says Dietsch, emphasizing the studio’s respect for creative labour and the desire to preserve jobs for voice talent and artists. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and games. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and a massive production pipeline before a director sees it on set.
In contrast, a game developer can prototype an idea in a single morning, drop it into the engine, and instantly iterate. This immediacy, he argues, fuels his passion for interactive media. Wendschuh observes that traditional filmmaking is heavily front‑loaded: securing A‑list directors or actors is often the gatekeeper to green‑lighting a project.
While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, 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," he says, highlighting the democratizing potential of interactive entertainment.
Both founders trace their love of storytelling back to childhood. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games; it came down to a coin toss and getting a camera for Christmas," Dietsch recalls. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, blending technical curiosity with narrative ambition. Ultimately, he believes the core purpose of both mediums is the same: to craft an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience.
This shared creative impulse continues to drive Wolf Haus as they bring Join Us—a bizarre, satirical, and technically impressive cult simulator—to players worldwide.