The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash machine‑guns, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the cut was the infamous “snake gun,” a quirky weapon that, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—originated from a child’s off‑hand suggestion. “One of our team member’s sons asked, ‘Can there be a snake gun?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool, so in about thirty minutes I built a gun that fires snakes.
He was blown away, and the weapon stayed in the final build,” Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay Join Us promises: an open‑world survival experience where players can recruit followers—or fellow players—to their 1970s‑inspired cult.
It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a visually rich, large‑scale title to be produced by a surprisingly small staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: “We set out to be disruptors. Everyone told us a twelve‑person team couldn’t deliver a game of this scope, but we proved them wrong.” The team’s confidence stems from a background in low‑budget, high‑impact filmmaking. “We come from indie cinema and are used to punching far above our weight,” Abbott says.
After 80 pitch meetings, the studio finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now hold stakes in Wolf Haus. Wolf Haus’s leadership is steeped in Hollywood pedigree. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson and fellow co‑founder of the studio.
Together they co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie features Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott, the son of veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott, helped launch Ascendant Pictures—the production company founded by Chris Roberts before his Star Citizen venture—and later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. The seed of Join Us sprouted when Dietsch began experimenting with Unreal Engine. “Unreal was free to download, and I’d been a gamer for as long as I’d watched movies,” he explains.
“The barrier to creating something felt huge, but I started learning from YouTube tutorials and built a few small prototypes.” Even without a formal game‑development background, Dietsch managed to craft a couple of modest titles before deciding to tackle something larger. The concept that persisted was a “doomsday cult simulator,” a mash‑up of survival mechanics and grindhouse cinema that merged his filmic sensibilities with interactive design. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, hit a technical wall, and then showed it to Abbott, who took the idea to Dooma for further development. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, entered the picture after a varied career spanning film production, screenwriting, and video‑game narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
He later founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis‑formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million. After a brief retirement—owning a restaurant on a remote Canadian island—Wendschuh was pulled back into the industry by an old Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott.
“I watched Joe’s demo and it blew my mind, so I came out of retirement to help,” he says. Wendschuh recruited Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros.
Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic, as a strategic advisor, and brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With the core team forming, the next hurdle was financing.
Pitching began in summer 2023 amid an industry downturn, forcing the studio to lean on representation from CAA in Los Angeles. After persistent outreach and a second round of pitches in 2024, they closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. The partnership with CAA—who also represent titles such as 007: First Light—proved instrumental, as did the credibility of veteran advisors Schneider and Chartrand.
“My agent Derek Douglas, who helped me for twelve years in games, was also my CAA contact,” Wendschuh notes. What truly sets Join Us apart is its production model: a full‑time roster of just thirteen developers.
Dietsch emphasizes that the team entered the project with a clear understanding of its scope and a desire to keep the environment intimate: “Everyone has a voice, everyone touches the creative side, and the game feels like it was made by a single, cohesive group.” To make an ambitious open‑world title feasible for such a lean crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset. “Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” Dietsch explains. “We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a massive map without the project collapsing under its own weight.” The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and constructing the underlying tools, a process that also laid the groundwork for future projects.
Funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed the studio to self‑finance the entire development cycle, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. “Our investors own equity, so they’re motivated to increase the studio’s enterprise value,” says Wendschuh. “That’s why they support our tool‑building ethos, even if it slows down short‑term development.” When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in the industry—Dietsch gave a blunt answer: the studio does not use it for creative work.
“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, never for art, design, or writing. Krafton, despite branding itself as an “AI‑first” company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline.
This mirrors the stance of Krafton‑owned Neon Giant, which publicly distanced itself from the parent’s AI pivot. Both studios argue that AI threatens jobs for voice actors, artists, and other creatives.
Indeed, Join Us’ six‑kilometre‑square map is hand‑crafted, and its 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—an intentional choice for a small indie studio. Dietsch contrasts the immediacy of game development with the lengthy gestation of film: “In movies, an idea can take years to reach the set, and you need permission from countless gatekeepers. In games, you can prototype an idea in a morning, see it in the engine, and iterate instantly.” Wendschuh notes that film production is front‑loaded with intense, high‑stakes coordination, often requiring A‑list talent to secure financing. By contrast, the game industry’s lower barriers to entry mean a small team can achieve success without celebrity involvement.
“We don’t need a blockbuster actor or director; we just need a compelling experience,” he says. Both men agree that storytelling is the common thread linking cinema and interactive media. “When I was six, I wanted to make either games or movies—it came down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera,” Dietsch reflects. “Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience.
The medium changes, but the core creative impulse stays the same."