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 clip, robed followers charge on pig‑back while brandishing machine guns, culminating in a shot of massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake‑gun, a weapon that, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—originated from a simple suggestion by a team member’s child. "His son asked, ‘What would a snake gun look like?’" Dietsch recalls.
"Because we had built a modular gun system, I could prototype a snake‑shooting weapon in roughly thirty minutes. The kid went nuts, and we kept it in the game." That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit AI followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult.
It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first philosophy, which has enabled a small crew to produce a visually rich, high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told ourselves, ‘We don’t need a hundred people; twelve can do the job.’ Everyone else thought we were crazy." The team’s confidence stems from a history of doing big things on shoestring budgets.
"We come from indie film backgrounds, so punching above our weight is second nature," Abbott explains. After 80 pitch meetings, the studio finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took a stake in Wolf Haus.
Wolf Haus’s founders are 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 he turned his attention to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. The genesis of Join Us can be traced back to Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
"Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge," he says. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, eventually building a few modest prototypes. The concept that kept resurfacing was a doomsday cult simulator—a mash‑up of survival mechanics, grindhouse cinema aesthetics, and the kind of narrative freedom he enjoyed in both movies and games. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, expecting to hit a technical wall at some point.
When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter immediately took it to Dooma, a partner studio. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had begun his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, which supplied writing talent for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After cashing out, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, a call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back. "I was looking at the video Joe sent me, and it blew my mind. It convinced me to come out of retirement," Wendschuh says.
He introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of 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, to serve as chief technology officer.
With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing—a daunting task given the industry’s downturn in the summer of 2023. Initial pitches generated enthusiasm but no commitments.
The studio eventually partnered with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, refined its pitch deck, 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. Abbott credits the CAA connection and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for the breakthrough.
"My agent at CAA, Derek Douglas, had represented me for twelve years in the gaming world and previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris," says Wendschuh. This pedigree, however, was only part of the story; the real differentiator was the studio’s commitment to a lean, tool‑centric workflow. Wolf Haus operates with just thirteen full‑time employees, a number that forces every team member to wear multiple hats. "We entered the project with a crystal‑clear sense of scope," Dietsch notes, emphasizing the desire to keep the team intimate so that each voice could influence the creative direction.
Early in development, the studio invested heavily in internal tools. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. By building robust pipelines and modular systems from day one, the team ensured that as the open‑world map expanded, the project wouldn’t collapse under its own weight. This tooling philosophy also serves future titles, creating a reusable foundation for Wolf Haus’s long‑term ambitions.
The equity funding model gave the studio breathing room to perfect those tools. "Krafton and Lifelike’s investment is essentially self‑funding for the game," Wendschuh says.
While a modest amount of project finance is now being allocated for marketing, the core development costs have been covered by the equity partners. "Because our investors benefit from the studio’s enterprise value, they encourage us to build extensive tooling, even if it slows short‑term progress," he adds. In an era where many indie studios lean on generative AI to accelerate asset creation, Wolf Haus deliberately steers clear of it. "We don’t use generative AI for any creative work," Dietsch asserts.
"Our process relies on a human touch; handing the game over to an algorithm would defeat the purpose of why we love making games." Wendschuh concedes that the team uses AI for administrative tasks—calendar management and email drafting—but not for design, art, or narrative. Krafton, despite branding itself as an “AI‑first” company, also insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline.
This stance mirrors that of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly denied involvement in the parent company’s AI pivot. Both studios argue that AI threatens jobs for voice actors, artists, and other creatives.
Accordingly, Join Us features a fully handcrafted six‑kilometre‑square map and 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors, a point of pride for the tiny team. Dietsch reflects on the contrast between film and game development. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent to secure a studio green‑light. In games, the feedback loop is immediate: "You can have an idea at breakfast and see it in the engine by lunch," he says.
This immediacy fuels the studio’s rapid iteration and creative freedom. Wendschuh adds that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, short‑term bursts of activity on set, whereas games allow for a more distributed workload.
"Anyone can shoot a backyard movie, but without big names or distribution, success is unlikely. By contrast, a well‑made indie game can reach a global audience without A‑list actors or directors," he explains.
Both founders agree that the core impulse behind their work—whether on a screen or a console—is storytelling and experience design. "When I was six, I wanted to make movies or games; it boiled down to a coin toss and maybe getting a camera for Christmas," Dietsch laughs. "I learned to program on a TI‑83, so the love for both mediums has always been there.
Ultimately, whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re trying to tell a story and engage an audience, and that goal never changes."