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 teaser, robed followers charge on pig‑mounted platforms, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like mass of 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, proudly attributes to a spontaneous idea from a team member’s child. “His son asked, ‘Can there be a snake gun?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new firearm in about thirty minutes, so I built one that shoots snakes on the fly.
He was thrilled, and the weapon stayed in the game,” Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures 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 join a 1970s‑style cult.
The game’s design philosophy mirrors the studio’s broader approach: a heavy emphasis on custom tooling that lets a tiny crew deliver a large‑scale, high‑fidelity experience. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed it up succinctly: “We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑ish game with just twelve people.
Most people laughed and called it impossible.” The team’s confidence wasn’t unfounded. Their background in indie filmmaking had already taught them to punch far above their budgetary weight. “We grew up making indie movies, so we’re used to doing big things with very limited resources,” Abbott explains.
After 80 pitch meetings, Wolf Haus finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the studio. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University, where he met Louie Gibson—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, the production house founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to Star Citizen.
Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. “Unreal Engine 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 modest prototypes, and eventually settled on the concept of a doomsday cult simulator—a mash‑up of survival mechanics, grindhouse cinema aesthetics, and the narrative hooks he adored in movies.
The proof‑of‑concept was rough but promising. Dietsch showed it to Abbott, who immediately recognized its potential and presented it to Dooma, a production partner. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had a career that spanned film production, screenwriting, and video‑game narrative work. In the early 2000s he founded Sekretagent Productions, providing writing services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
Later, he built several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (about $330 million USD). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire and enjoy a quiet life. Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, a phone call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry.
“I was looking at a game Joe had made and it blew my mind. It convinced me to come out of retirement,” Wendschuh recounts. He then introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet.
Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With a core team forming, the next hurdle was funding—particularly challenging during the industry downturn of 2023‑2024. After initial outreach, Wolf Haus partnered with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Los Angeles and relaunched its pitch campaign in 2024. Their persistence paid off, landing seed investment from Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—whose roster includes titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of seasoned veterans such as Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors. Despite the high‑profile backing, the studio remains remarkably lean: only 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model was intentional.
“We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership over the final product.” To make a sprawling open‑world game feasible with such a roster, the studio devoted a large portion of its first development year to building robust, scalable tools. “If a system exists in the game, it must be debuggable and expandable by a single person,” Dietsch explains.
“We invested heavily in a toolkit that lets us grow features across the map without the project collapsing under its own weight.” The equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑fund the bulk of development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. This structure aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term vision: building reusable tools that benefit future projects. “Our investors want the studio to increase in enterprise value, so they support our tool‑centric ethos,” says Wendschuh. “When we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a custom tool.
It may slow us down short‑term, but it enables us to achieve AAA‑level results with a tiny team.” When asked about the role of generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they avoid it in the creative pipeline. “We believe a game needs a human touch.
Hand‑crafting experiences is why we get up in the morning,” Dietsch states. Wendschuh adds that the only AI they employ is for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton—publicly positioning itself as an “AI‑first” company—insisted that Wolf Haus not use generative AI for creative work, echoing a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The commitment to hand‑crafted content extends to the game’s massive 6‑kilometer‑square map and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors.
“That was non‑negotiable for us, even as a small indie studio,” Dietsch affirms. The team sees this as a stand against the potential job displacement AI could cause for voice talent and artists. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and game creation. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent to secure studio backing.
In games, the feedback loop is immediate: “You can have an idea this morning, drop it into the engine, and see it in action within hours,” he says. Wendschuh notes that while film production is front‑loaded with intense, high‑stakes set work, games allow a more iterative, democratized process where fewer gatekeepers stand between a creator and a finished product. Both mediums share a core purpose: delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience.
Dietsch’s childhood ambition—to make either movies or games—ultimately led him to a career that bridges both worlds. His journey underscores a broader industry trend: small, agile teams leveraging custom tools, deep industry networks, and a steadfast commitment to handcrafted artistry can produce ambitious, high‑quality games without relying on massive headcounts or generative AI shortcuts.