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‑gun fire, and ultimately confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the public cut was the infamous snake‑gun, a weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a child’s off‑hand suggestion.
"My team member’s son 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 went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls. This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult.
It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a high‑fidelity experience to be crafted by a remarkably small crew. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, sums it up: "We set out to be disruptors. We told everyone we could deliver a AAA‑level game with just twelve people, and most thought we were crazy." The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets. "We come from indie filmmaking, so we’re used to punching well above our weight," Abbott explains.
After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now own stakes in the studio. 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 his Star Citizen venture. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
The seed of Join Us sprouted when Dietsch began tinkering with 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 through YouTube tutorials, built a few small prototypes, and eventually gravitated toward a doomsday‑cult concept that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. 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 recognized its potential and presented it to Dooma, a partner that helped move the project forward. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative work 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 C$430 million (about $330 million USD). After that windfall, 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 into development. Wendschuh was impressed by Dietsch’s demo and re‑entered the industry, bringing on Reid Schneider—former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic—as a strategic advisor.
Schneider recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With the core team in place, the next hurdle was financing, which proved difficult during the industry downturn of 2023‑24.
After initial outreach, Wolf Haus signed with CAA in Los Angeles and resumed pitching in 2024, eventually closing a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits CAA’s representation and the involvement of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for smoothing the path. Despite the high‑profile backing, Join Us is being built by only 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model is intentional: "We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership over a game that truly reflects our collective vision." To make such an ambitious open‑world title feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on.
"Every system must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch notes. The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and constructing the internal toolset that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight as it expanded across a six‑kilometre‑square map. The equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance the development, using the capital primarily for tool creation and later for limited marketing spend. "Our investors benefit from the studio’s enterprise value, so they encourage us to build robust tools rather than cut corners," Wendschuh explains.
This approach sometimes slows immediate progress but ultimately enables a tiny team to deliver a product of AAA caliber. When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not employ it for any creative tasks.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate assets would undermine why we get up each morning to make games," Dietsch says. Wendschuh adds that the only AI they use is for mundane admin tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton, which publicly branded itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring similar stances taken by other Krafton‑owned studios such as Neon Giant.
The studio also rejects AI‑generated voice work. All 15,000 voice lines in Join Us were recorded by human actors, and the entire map was handcrafted. "Even as a small indie, we felt it was crucial to preserve that human element," Dietsch asserts. Dietsch reflects on the contrast between film and games: film projects can take years to move from script to set, often requiring the approval of high‑profile talent and studios before production even begins.
In games, an idea can be prototyped in a matter of hours, allowing immediate iteration. "You can have a concept at breakfast and see it in the engine by lunch," he says, describing the exhilarating immediacy of game development. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, costly pre‑production phases that hinge on securing A‑list directors or actors. While anyone can technically shoot a movie with a backyard camera, breaking through without major names or distribution is rare.
By contrast, the game industry has fewer gatekeepers, making it more accessible for small teams to achieve success without celebrity endorsement. Both mediums, however, share a common creative drive: storytelling and immersive experience. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It came down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera.
I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always loved both," Dietsch muses. He concludes that regardless of the platform, the goal remains the same—to craft an engaging narrative that resonates with the audience.