The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates in an image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a quirky weapon that CEO and creative director Joe Dietsch says was born from a child’s imagination. "My team member’s son asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new weapon in about thirty minutes, so I built it on the fly.
The kid was thrilled, and the gun stayed in the game," Dietsch recounts. 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 in co‑op mode—to join a retro‑style 1970s cult. It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a small team to deliver a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a much larger staff.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, explains the studio’s philosophy: "We set out to be disruptors. While everyone assumed you needed a hundred‑person development house, we believed twelve talented people could do the job. Most people thought we were crazy, but our background in indie filmmaking taught us how to punch far above our weight." After eighty pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving the studio the financial runway to continue development. 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 features Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott is the son of veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, a production company started by Chris Roberts before he moved on 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 laid the groundwork for Wolf Haus’s ambitious vision. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
"Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt blocked from actually creating one. I started watching YouTube tutorials and built a few tiny prototypes," he says. Though he lacked formal training, Dietsch quickly progressed from these modest experiments to a full‑blown proof‑of‑concept for a doomsday cult simulator—a concept that merged his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
He showed the demo to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, a partner studio that helped refine the idea. 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 founding Sekretagent Productions, a writing house that contributed narrative work to 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 roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After cashing out, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire.
Yet a chance call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the game industry. "I watched the demo Joe sent me and was instantly blown away—so I left retirement behind," Wendschuh recalls. Through Wendschuh’s network, Wolf Haus recruited strategic advisor Reid Schneider—former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet—and CTO Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a veteran programmer from Ubisoft Montreal.
With this leadership core in place, the studio turned its attention to funding. Pitching began in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. Despite the challenging climate, the team’s compelling vision attracted interest, and after a second round of pitches in 2024—bolstered by representation from CAA (Creative Artists Agency)—they closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Abbott notes that CAA’s involvement, along with seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand, was instrumental. "Our agent Derek Douglas had been my representative during my twelve‑year game‑making career and previously headed the video‑game division at William Morris," Abbott says.
This pedigree helped Wolf Haus secure the resources needed to keep the project moving forward. What truly sets Join Us apart is the scale of its ambition relative to its headcount.
With just thirteen full‑time staff members, the studio deliberately kept the team small to preserve a collaborative culture where every voice matters and each person can touch both creative and technical aspects. To make such a large, open‑world title feasible, Wolf Haus invested heavily in building internal tools from day one. "Any system we create must be scalable and debuggable by a single developer," explains Dietsch. "We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and engineering the toolset that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight." The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect these tools.
"Krafton and Lifelike’s capital funded the entire development, making the game essentially self‑sustaining," says Wendschuh. "We’re now only adding a modest amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development was covered by our equity partners." Both founders are staunchly opposed to relying on generative AI for creative work. "We don’t use any generative AI in the game’s design," Dietsch asserts. "Our process is rooted in human creativity; handing the work over to an algorithm would defeat the purpose of why we love making games." Wendschuh adds that the studio’s only AI usage is limited to mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Interestingly, Krafton—while branding itself as an "AI‑first" company—explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in its creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The studio’s commitment to human‑crafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely hand‑built, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by real actors, not synthetic voices.
"Even as a tiny indie, we felt it was vital to preserve that human touch," says Dietsch. Reflecting on the differences between film and game production, Dietsch highlights the immediacy of game development. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent.
By contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning and instantly visualised in the engine. "That rapid feedback loop is exhilarating," he says. Wendschuh agrees, noting that film projects are front‑loaded with intense pre‑production work and gatekeeping by studios, whereas games have fewer barriers to entry, allowing smaller teams to achieve success without A‑list names. Both creators trace their passion back to childhood.
"When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It came down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera," Dietsch recalls, adding that he learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator. He believes that, regardless of medium, the core goal remains the same: to craft an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience.
In summary, Wolf Haus’s Join Us exemplifies how a small, tightly knit team—bolstered by Hollywood experience, savvy tech development, and strategic equity partners—can produce a sprawling, high‑quality game without leaning on generative AI. Their story underscores the power of human creativity, the importance of bespoke tooling, and the potential for indie studios to disrupt traditional development paradigms.