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, cloaked followers charge on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with an image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make it onto the screen was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was inspired by a child’s off‑hand suggestion.
"One of the team members’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool for firearms, so within half an hour I built a gun that actually fires snakes. The kid was blown away, and the weapon stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls.
That anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first philosophy, which has allowed a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger 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 knew from indie film work that we could punch far above our weight." The founders bring deep Hollywood connections to the table. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who later 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 personal experiment in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt the barrier to creating one was huge," Dietsch explains.
He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday cult simulator that fused his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He created a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the duo took the concept to Dooma, a partner studio. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, entered the picture after a varied career in film and games.
He produced and wrote for movies before founding Sekretagent Productions, which supplied narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. In the 2010s he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million. After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire.
Yet a call from his old Hollywood‑Hill roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back: "Joe’s demo blew my mind and convinced me to come out of retirement." Wendschuh then recruited Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic, as a strategic advisor. Schneider brought on Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With this core in place, the studio turned to funding.
The first pitch cycle began in summer 2023, a period marked by an industry downturn. After numerous presentations and the assistance of CAA (Creative Artists Agency), Wolf Haus secured seed investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both taking equity stakes. The small‑team approach demanded a heavy investment in internal tools. "Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch notes.
The first year of development was split between designing gameplay concepts and engineering the toolset that would allow those concepts to expand across a six‑kilometre‑square open world without collapsing under its own weight. This tooling philosophy also aligns with their equity‑funded model: investors are motivated to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support the time‑intensive practice of building custom solutions rather than cutting corners. When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not rely on it for creative work. "We believe a game needs a human touch.
Using AI to generate core content would defeat why we get up every morning," Dietsch says. Wendschuh adds that while they may use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management, the creative pipeline—art, design, voice work—remains entirely human. Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in game creation, mirroring a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑backed studio.
Indeed, Join Us boasts a hand‑crafted map and 15,000 voice lines recorded by professional actors, underscoring the studio’s commitment to artisanal production. Dietsch reflects on the contrast between film and games: "In film you spend years developing a script, securing A‑list talent, and hoping a studio greenlights it.
In games, you can prototype an idea in the morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly. The barrier to entry is far lower, and you don’t need celebrity names to succeed." Both mediums share a common creative impulse—telling stories and delivering experiences—but the pathways differ. Dietsch recalls that as a child he wanted to make either movies or games, and a Christmas camera tipped the scales toward programming.
Today, his team’s blend of Hollywood savvy, cannabis‑industry capital, and bespoke technology enables a twelve‑person studio to deliver a large‑scale, high‑quality game without leaning on generative AI, proving that a focused, human‑centric approach can still disrupt the industry.