You may remember seeing the Join Us trailer during the Xbox Showcase in June. The clip introduced a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulation where robed followers zip around on pigs, wield machine guns, and ultimately confront massive Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that, according to Wolf Haus Games’ CEO and creative director Joe Dietsch, was born from a child’s off‑hand suggestion. "One of our team members’ sons asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new weapon in about thirty minutes, so I built a gun that actually fires snakes.
It blew his mind, and it stayed in the game," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay at the heart of Join Us, an open‑world survival title that lets players recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to a 1970s‑inspired cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first philosophy, which has enabled a relatively small crew to produce a high‑fidelity experience. "We set out to be disruptors," says Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer.
"We told ourselves, ‘We don’t need a hundred developers; twelve can do the job.’ Everyone thought we were crazy, but we proved them wrong." The team’s confidence stems from a history of punching above their weight in low‑budget environments. Many of the founders come from indie film backgrounds, where resourcefulness is a daily requirement.
After 80 pitches, they finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving Wolf Haus the financial runway it needed. Wolf Haus’s leadership is steeped in Hollywood pedigree.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of 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 company founded by Chris Roberts before his work on Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 with Jamie Foxx.
The genesis of Join Us traces back to Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a huge barrier to actually creating something," he explains.
He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually settled on the idea of a doomsday cult simulator—a concept that fused his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the pair began to flesh out the vision. Chief financial officer and narrative director Dooma Wendschuh entered the picture after a career that spanned film production, screenwriting, and video‑game narrative work. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing writing for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
In the 2010s he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million. After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑hillroommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into game development. Impressed by Dietsch’s demo, Wendschuh recruited former Warner Bros. Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor and brought in Ubisoft Montreal veteran Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand as chief technology officer.
Funding proved challenging amid an industry downturn that began in 2023. The team’s early pitches generated interest but also skepticism. After partnering with CAA in Los Angeles, they refined their pitch and, in 2024, secured seed financing from Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits the CAA relationship—alongside veteran advisors like Schneider and Chartrand—for opening doors that might otherwise have remained closed.
Despite the high aspirations, Join Us is being built by just 13 full‑time staff members. "We entered the project with a clear understanding of scope and a desire to keep the team small and collaborative," says Dietsch. Every employee has a voice, and each contributes directly to the creative direction. To make a large‑scale open world feasible with a tiny crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset.
"Any system in the game has to be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch notes. The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and constructing the internal tools that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight. This tool‑centric approach also aligns with the equity funding model: Krafton and Lifelike’s investment allows the studio to self‑finance development, using the capital to build the very tools that enable a small team to produce a massive game. When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not employ it for creative tasks.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate assets would defeat the purpose of why we get up every morning," Dietrich says. Wendschuh adds that the only AI they use is for mundane administrative work, such as calendar management and email drafting.
Interestingly, Krafton—marketed as an "AI‑first" company—specifically required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the game’s creation, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The studio’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio.
The six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely hand‑built, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. Dietsch emphasizes that this level of artisanal effort matters even for an indie title.
Comparing film and games, Dietsch finds games offer a immediacy that movies lack. In film, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals and a long production pipeline. In a game engine, an idea can be prototyped within hours, allowing instant iteration. Wendschuh observes that while film production is front‑loaded with high‑stakes negotiations for talent and studio backing, games have far fewer gatekeepers.
"You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to get a game funded; the barriers are lower, which makes the odds of success higher for small teams," he explains. Both mediums, however, share a core creative impulse: storytelling and immersive experience. Dietsch reflects on his childhood fascination with both cameras and code, noting that whether one is making a movie or a game, the goal is to transport an audience into a compelling world.
This shared purpose underpins Wolf Haus’s ambitious project, proving that a small, dedicated team with the right tools and a clear vision can rival larger studios—without relying on generative AI.