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 pig‑back, wielding machine guns, before the screen fades to an image of enormous, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a simple suggestion by a team member’s child. "His son asked, ‘What if there’s a snake gun?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new weapon in about thirty minutes, so I built one that actually fires snakes.
The kid went wild, and the weapon stayed in the game," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay Join Us promises: an open‑world survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire.
It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a small crew to aim for high‑fidelity production values typically reserved for far larger teams. Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑ish experience with just twelve people, and most people thought we were crazy." Wolf Haus’s founders are no strangers to punching above their weight.
Their backgrounds are steeped in indie filmmaking, where modest budgets demand creative efficiency. "We come from indie film circles, so we’re used to doing a lot with a little," Abbott explains. After roughly eighty pitch meetings, the team finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving them the financial runway to bring Join Us to life.
The Hollywood connections run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of actor Mel Gibson—who later co‑founded Wolf Haus and co‑wrote 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 founded by Chris Roberts before his Star Citizen venture. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
These film‑industry pedigrees helped the team navigate storytelling, visual design, and the art of pitching ideas. Join Us originated from Dietsch tinkering with Unreal Engine.
"Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a huge barrier to actually creating something," he says. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few small prototypes, and eventually settled on the concept of a doomsday cult simulator—a mash‑up of survival mechanics and grindhouse cinema that merged his passions for both mediums.
The proof‑of‑concept was rough but promising. Dietsch pushed it as far as he could, anticipating a technical wall that would force him to abandon the idea. Instead, he showed the demo to Abbott, who recognized its potential and took it to Dooma, a production partner. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously produced and written for major film franchises before moving into games in the early 2000s.
He founded Sekretagent Productions, contributing writing to titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he built a series of tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million. After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, planning a quiet retirement.
But a call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back. "Joe sent me a video of the game, and it blew my mind.
I came out of retirement to join the project," Wendschuh says. He then recruited Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic, to act as strategic advisor, and brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With the core team in place, the next hurdle was financing—particularly challenging during the industry downturn of 2023‑2024.
Initial outreach yielded interest but no commitments. After partnering with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, the studio relaunched its pitch deck in 2024 and finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits CAA’s representation (which also handles titles like 007: First Light) and the presence of seasoned veterans Schneider and Chartrand for the successful close. Despite the high‑profile backing, the studio has remained deliberately small—13 full‑time staff members at the time of writing.
"We entered the project knowing exactly what we wanted to achieve, and we wanted to keep a tight‑knit environment where everyone’s voice matters," Dietsch explains. To make a sprawling open‑world game feasible for such a lean crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from day one.
"Every system has to be scalable and debuggable by a single developer. We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a massive map without the project collapsing under its own weight," he says.
The first year of development was split evenly between ideating gameplay and constructing the underlying tools, a strategy that also future‑proofs the studio for subsequent projects. The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the luxury of time. Krafton and Lifelike’s capital funded the entire development, with the studio only now seeking modest project finance for marketing. "Equity partners care about the studio’s enterprise value, so they encourage us to build robust tools.
It may slow us down short‑term, but it lets a tiny team produce something of this scale," Wendschuh notes. When asked about generative AI, a hot topic in the industry, the team’s stance is clear: they avoid it for creative work. "We believe a game needs a human touch. Using AI to generate assets would defeat why we get up every morning," Dietsch says.
Wendschuh adds that while they use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, none of it touches the artistic side of development. Interestingly, Krafton—publicly positioning itself as an "AI‑first" company—insisted that Wolf Haus refrain from using generative AI in the creative pipeline, aligning with the studio’s philosophy. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game world itself.
The six‑kilometre‑square map of Join Us was built by hand, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, a point the team proudly highlights as a differentiator for an indie title. Dietsch reflects on the contrast between film and games: "In film, you write a script, wait years for greenlight, then finally shoot.
Games let you prototype an idea in the morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly. That immediacy is exhilarating." Wendschuh agrees, noting that film production is front‑loaded with securing A‑list talent and studio approval, whereas games have fewer gatekeepers. "You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game; the barriers are lower," he says.
Both mediums, however, share a core purpose: storytelling and immersion. "When I was six, I wanted to make movies or games.
It came down to a coin toss and getting a camera for Christmas. I learned to program on a TI‑83, so the love for both has always been there. Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. That essence never changes," Dietsch concludes.