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 preview, robed followers charge on pig‑mounted platforms, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with an ominous image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous “snake gun,” a weapon whose origin, according to Wolf Haus Games’ CEO and creative director Joe Dietsch, is as quirky as the game itself.
“It started with a kid—one of our team members’ sons—who asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a modular weapon system that let us prototype a new gun in roughly thirty minutes. I built it on the fly, and the kid went nuts. It stayed in the game,” Dietsch recalls, laughing.
That anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire. The game’s wild mechanics are only one side of the story. Behind the scenes, Wolf Haus has taken a decidedly tech‑first approach, allowing a tiny team to produce a high‑fidelity experience that would normally demand a studio of dozens, if not hundreds, of developers.
Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: “We set out to be disruptors. We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred people; twelve will do.’ Most people thought we were crazy.” Abbott and his colleagues draw on a background in indie filmmaking, a discipline that taught them how to stretch limited resources while still delivering cinematic quality. “We’ve spent our careers punching well above our weight,” Abbott says. After a marathon of 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus.
The founding trio’s Hollywood lineage runs deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—who co‑founded Wolf Haus and 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, the production company originally founded by Chris Roberts before his move to the Star Citizen universe.
Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us was born from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. “I discovered that Unreal was free to download and started tinkering with it using YouTube tutorials,” he explains.
Though he had no formal game‑dev training, Dietsch managed to ship a few small prototypes before deciding to tackle something bigger—a doomsday cult simulator that fused his love of grindhouse cinema with survival‑game mechanics. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming it would soon hit a technical wall. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and introduced it to Dooma, the studio’s early‑stage investor. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously worked as a producer and screenwriter in Hollywood before transitioning to games in the early 2000s.
He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million.
Wendschuh’s story took a turn when he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. A call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, changed those plans. “Joe sent me a video of his game, and it blew my mind. I came out of retirement to help,” Wendschuh says.
He brought on Reid Schneider—former Warner Bros. Games VP and now head of Raccoon Logic—as a strategic advisor, and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer.
With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was funding, a challenge amplified by a broader industry downturn in 2023. After initial outreach, Wolf Haus partnered with CAA in Los Angeles and relaunched their pitch campaign in 2024, eventually closing a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Wendschuh credits the CAA connection and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for smoothing the path. Despite the high‑profile backing, the studio remains lean—13 full‑time staff members at the time of writing.
Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional: “We wanted a setting where everyone has a voice, everyone can touch the creative process, and the game feels like it was built by a tight‑knit group.” To make such an ambitious open‑world title feasible, the team invested heavily in custom tooling early on. “Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” Dietsch notes.
The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and building the internal toolchain that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight. The equity financing model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools.
“Krafton and Lifelike’s investments fund the entire development,” says Wendschuh. “We’re now adding a modest project‑finance component for marketing, but the core game was built entirely with their equity capital.” This structure aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the continued development of reusable tools even when they slow immediate progress. When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—both Dietsch and Wendschuh are unequivocal: they do not rely on it for creative work.
“We believe a human touch is essential,” Dietsch says. “We have a few AI subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management, but none of it touches the art, design, or narrative.” Krafton, despite branding itself as an “AI‑first” company, also insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio.
The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s massive six‑kilometre‑square map and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors. “That was a non‑negotiable for us, even as a small indie,” Wendschuh explains, noting the ethical concerns around AI‑generated voices displacing real talent. Dietsch reflects on the differences between film and games: “In film, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals and star power. In games, you can prototype a concept in a morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly.
That immediacy is intoxicating.” He adds that while movies often need A‑list directors or actors to secure financing, games face fewer gatekeepers, making it easier for small teams to break through. Both mediums, however, share a common creative drive: storytelling and immersive experience.
“Whether you’re making a movie or a game, you’re giving people an experience, telling a story, and engaging them. The tools may differ, but the core mission is the same,” Dietsch concludes.