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, wield machine guns, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One of the most memorable, albeit unseen, moments was the inclusion of a "snake gun"—a weapon that fires serpents instead of bullets.
According to Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the idea originated from a team member’s son who simply asked, “Can there be a snake gun?” Leveraging a rapid‑prototyping tool they had built, Dietsch was able to implement the quirky weapon in roughly half an hour, and it remains a permanent feature in the final product. This anecdote captures the chaotic, sandbox‑style gameplay that Join Us promises. Set in an open‑world environment reminiscent of 1970s cult movies, players can recruit followers—or team up with friends in co‑op mode—to build and manage their own eccentric cult. The game’s design philosophy is deeply rooted in the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a small team to produce a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a much larger workforce.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up the team’s ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could deliver a AAA‑level title with just twelve people, and most people laughed at the notion." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where working with limited budgets is the norm.
The studio endured 80 pitch meetings before securing equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now hold stakes in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep. 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 films 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 was born from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d been a gamer my whole life, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge," he recalls.
After teaching himself through YouTube tutorials, he produced a few modest games before deciding to tackle something more ambitious: a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept prototype, pushed it to Abbott, and the concept quickly attracted the attention of Dooma Wendschuh, the studio’s chief financial officer and narrative director.
Wendschuh’s career bridges film and interactive media. He began as a producer and screenwriter 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 company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (about $330 million USD). After cashing out, he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire.
Yet a call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the industry. After reviewing a demo of Join Us, Wendschuh was convinced and brought on Reid Schneider—a former Warner Bros. Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic—as a strategic advisor, along with Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand from Ubisoft Montreal as chief technology officer.
Securing financing proved challenging amid an industry downturn in 2023. After an initial wave of pitches, the studio enlisted Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to represent them and returned to investors in 2024.
Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed a seed round, providing the capital needed to continue development while keeping the studio’s equity structure intact. The small‑team approach is central to Wolf Haus’s identity. With only 13 full‑time staff members, the studio emphasizes a collaborative atmosphere where every voice matters. To prevent the project from collapsing under its own weight, the team invested heavily in custom tooling early on.
"Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," says Dietsch. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay features and constructing the internal toolset that would later allow those features to flourish across a six‑kilometre‑square open world. Funding from Krafton and Lifelike has been used almost exclusively for development, with a modest portion allocated to marketing.
Because the investors hold equity, they share the studio’s long‑term goal of increasing enterprise value, which aligns with Wolf Haus’s philosophy of building reusable tools for future projects. "Whenever we hit a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a tool for it," Wendschuh explains. "It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a tiny team to achieve something that normally requires dozens of engineers." In an era where many studios tout generative AI as a shortcut, Wolf Haus deliberately steers clear of it for creative work. Dietsch states, "We believe a game needs a human touch; handing the creative process over to an algorithm defeats the purpose of why we love making games." Wendschuh adds that the studio only uses AI for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Interestingly, Krafton—positioned as an "AI‑first" company—explicitly required Wolf Haus to refrain from using generative AI in the game's creation, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The studio’s commitment to handcrafted content is evident in the game's massive map, which is entirely hand‑built, and the 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors. "Even as a tiny indie, we felt it was crucial to preserve that level of human artistry," Dietsch notes.
Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and game production. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, subject to the whims of studios, directors, and actors. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours, allowing immediate iteration.
"You can have an idea in the morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly," he says, highlighting the immediacy that fuels his passion. Wendschuh points out that film production is heavily front‑loaded, requiring the involvement of high‑profile talent to secure financing, whereas games face fewer gatekeepers.
"Anyone can rent a camera and shoot a backyard movie, but without star power it’s hard to break through. In games, you don’t need an A‑list actor or director to succeed," he explains.
Both founders agree that storytelling is the core driver 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.
He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, a skill that later merged with his cinematic sensibilities. "Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re crafting an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience.
The medium changes, but the creative impulse stays the same."