You may remember seeing the Join Us trailer during the Xbox Showcase back in June. The clip introduced a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulation where robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash machine‑gun fire, and the finale reveals massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles looming overhead. What didn’t make the cut, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the studio behind Join Us—was the infamous snake‑gun.
"One of the kids on our team came up with the idea," Dietsch recounts. "He asked, ‘What if there was a snake gun?’ We had a modular weapon system, so I whipped up a snake‑shooting gun in about thirty minutes.
The kid went nuts, and we kept it in the final build." That anecdote captures the kind of chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op—to join a 1970s‑style cult. It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a small, high‑fidelity project to emerge from a lean development team. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, says the team set out to be “disruptors.” "We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve talented people can pull this off.’ Most people laughed and said it was impossible," Abbott says. "But we’ve spent years in indie film, learning how to punch far above our budget.
After 80 pitches we finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital." The founders’ Hollywood pedigree 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 started by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us began as a side project for Dietsch while he was tinkering in Unreal Engine. "Unreal Engine is free to download, and I’d always loved games.
It felt like there was a huge barrier to actually creating something, so I downloaded it and started learning from YouTube tutorials," he explains. Despite having no formal game‑dev background, Dietsch built a few small prototypes before deciding to tackle something larger. "I kept circling back to a doomsday cult simulator because it let me mash together survival mechanics, grindhouse cinema vibes, and the kind of storytelling I love in movies," he says.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming it would eventually hit a technical wall. When he showed the demo to Abbott, Abbott took it to Dooma, a partner studio that helped refine the concept. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, started his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s.
He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing 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 roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
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 call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back. "I was looking at the game Joe had made and it completely blew my mind. It convinced me to step out of retirement," Wendschuh says.
He then introduced the project to Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games VP now heading 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, as chief technology officer. With a core team forming, the next hurdle was financing—especially during a market downturn that began in 2023.
The studio began pitching in the summer of that year, receiving positive reactions but also skepticism due to the timing. After initial outreach, Wolf Haus signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles and resumed pitching in 2024. Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed a seed round.
Wendschuh credits CAA’s clout—representing titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of industry veterans such as Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors. "My agent Derek Douglas, who’s also our CAA contact, has represented me for over a decade and previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris," Wendschuh notes.
What truly sets Join Us apart is the scale of its production relative to staff size. Only 13 full‑time employees are working on the game. Dietsch explains that the team deliberately kept the roster small to preserve a collaborative atmosphere where every voice matters and everyone can touch the creative process. To make a sprawling open‑world title feasible with such a tiny crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from day one.
"Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch says. "We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a massive map without the project collapsing under its own weight. The first year was as much about building those tools as it was about designing the gameplay." The funding structure gave the studio the breathing room to perfect these tools. Both Krafton and Lifelike hold equity stakes, and their capital has been used to self‑fund development.
The studio is now dipping into project finance for marketing, but the core game was built entirely with investor money. "Equity partners want the studio to increase its enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," Wendschuh explains.
"Whenever we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a tool. It may slow development in the short term, but it enables us to deliver a high‑quality game with a small team." When asked about generative AI, Dietsch is unequivocal: the studio does not employ it in any creative capacity.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Turning development over to an AI would defeat why we get up every morning," he says. Wendschuh adds that the team only uses AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Even Krafton, which has recently branded itself as an “AI‑first” company, discouraged the use of generative AI in Wolf Haus’s creative pipeline. "Our investors wanted to be sure we weren’t relying on AI to produce the game," Wendschuh says, echoing similar statements from Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The studio’s stance is rooted in a respect for creative labor.
"We don’t want AI to replace voice actors or artists," Wendschuh asserts. The six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is handcrafted, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human performers—an intentional decision for a tiny indie team. Dietsch reflects on the contrast between film and games, noting the immediacy of the latter.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals and massive coordination. In game development, an idea can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and instantly visualized. "That instant feedback loop is exhilarating," he says.
Wendschuh points out that film production is heavily front‑loaded: securing a high‑profile director or star is often a prerequisite for greenlighting. While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without big names or distribution is rare. By comparison, the barriers to entry for games are lower, making success more attainable for small teams. Both founders agree that the core creative impulse—telling stories and delivering experiences—remains the same across mediums.
"When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It came down to a coin toss and whether I got a camera for Christmas," Dietsch recalls. "I learned to program on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been drawn to both.
Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re trying to engage an audience, tell a story, and create an experience. That fundamental goal doesn’t change."