Today marks the 10th anniversary of Her Story’s release, on June 24, 2025. Here, we chat with the game’s creator, Sam Barlow, about the intriguing puzzles that propel the game, its enduring impact, and his personal experiences that influenced its creation.
Spoilers for Her Story follow.
Sam Barlow wants to put something on the record.
“As far as I know,” he says, “neither of my grandmothers murdered anybody.”
As I delved deeper into crafting my groundbreaking 2015 crime fiction game Her Story, I gradually came to recognize that I was, in fact, weaving a tale inspired by my own grandmothers’ experiences. Their identities, shaped by societal and familial forces, were becoming the narrative I was shaping.
Barlow grew up knowing his maternal grandmother primarily as a warm, cuddly “Northern English matriarch,” though she had once been a renowned singer. After her passing, he regretted not asking more about her life experiences beyond that role, feeling remorseful for not inquiring about her glamorous past when she was still alive. As a child, and especially as a British child, discussing emotions wasn’t commonplace.
“I wish I had an hour to sit down and interrogate her.”
In this game called “Her Story,” the narrative takes more than an hour to unfold, yet the similarities are evident. You play as a character without a name, attempting to decipher your mother’s past by watching police interviews with her after her husband’s disappearance. By inputting keywords, you navigate through a basic video archive, gradually piecing together her story. The underlying themes are not limited to Barlow’s family but extend to real-life criminals, injustices within the legal system, women’s issues during the 20th century, and fairy tales. Remarkably, it remains as relevant and deep today as it was a decade ago.
For certain players, the lasting impact of Her Story lies in its mystery: a multitude of Reddit, Steam, and forum discussions questioning the truth behind Eve and Hannah’s fates. On-screen, these characters are brilliantly played by Viva Seifert. As the game nears its conclusion, Eve claims that Hannah is her twin sister who won’t return, yet also states she doesn’t exist.
Are they really two women, fans asked, or one?
10 years after the release of Her Story, Barlow, its creator, maintains that the game’s main storyline should remain a puzzle. During our recent interview, he admitted that one particular interpretation of the story makes him feel uneasy. Furthermore, he sheds light on additional layers of subtext and reveals how he crafted the lasting enigma surrounding the game, both intentionally and unintentionally.
Barlow drew inspiration for Her Story from numerous sources, such as TV police dramas like Homicide: Life on the Street and actual interrogation manuals. He also spent time watching police interviews on YouTube, including those of Jodi Arias, who was convicted of murdering her husband in 2013. Arias’ videos gained widespread popularity, turning into public spectacles that were scrutinized and dissected by countless people online.
Barlow found the topic quite profound, yet it brought him immense joy. Fresh from his independence following a challenging conclusion to his work at Climax Studios, creators of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, he was now spending less than a full day’s work on a project close to his heart.
In the morning, he dropped off his little kids at school and stopped working at 2 p.m., to devote more time to them. He adhered to John Cleese’s productivity rule, which involves 90-minute segments for creative tasks. He managed to incorporate two such periods amidst a leisurely breakfast, doing laundry, scrolling through Twitter, and responding to emails.
During springtime, he often found himself relaxing in the garden while immersed in books pertaining to his research. This setup proved incredibly fruitful as it allowed him uninterrupted focus, devoid of any meetings.
As a gamer brainstorming a new concept for a game, the thought struck me that it could be more open-ended, deviating from the linear narrative of games like Phoenix Wright. At first, I felt a pang of doubt, like this might just be a terrible idea. But then, it hit me – it was risky, yes, but also thrilling! The best part? No need to convince anyone or explain my vision. The decision was made right there and then.
As Barlow continued to observe police interviews, the narrative unfolded for him, stirring empathy within him as he gazed upon the individuals being questioned. To his mind, these people weren’t cold-hearted villains, and on occasion, they seemed to be influenced by the detectives seated opposite them.
He remarks, “I found myself becoming quite frustrated over that situation, possibly shaping my perception to side more with the woman instead of the detective [in Her Story].
In other words, even though Barlow didn’t intentionally include it, some idea subtly found its way into Her Story, dripping down from the higher echelons of his thoughts and onto the page.
He references a blog article penned by Emily Short, a writer and narrative designer, who discusses the sensation of being a woman and expressing a specific identity, and how the story provided an avenue for this exploration, according to him.
Once more, those thoughts I had were quite particular, distinct from the content of the text by several levels or stages.
The realization about his grandmothers carved more detail into the story.
During World War II, bombs destroyed the theater where Barlow’s grandmother used to sing, and his father prohibited her from continuing. As a result, she got married and spent her life raising children at home.
According to Barlow, his paternal grandmother was a typical 1950s housewife who had everything prepared for dinner at exactly 5 pm. However, as she grew older, she became quite senile and he recalls her resentment about the life she had to live, the hardships she faced, and how she often took a backseat to his grandfather would frequently surface.
He recognized that his grandmothers’ tales significantly influenced his thoughts on personal identity, assumptions, and how people judge others. As a result, he chose to fully embrace and make these themes more prominent in his work or thoughts.
In much the same way that Barlow’s grandmother was a singer, Eve shares this trait. However, his other grandmother had a secret habit – she smoked, concealing her cigarettes within ceramic ornaments. As a child who was always on the hunt for intriguing things and often exploring his grandparents’ home, he would occasionally discover these hidden cigarettes, as he recounts.
In the story, Eleanor conceals her cigarettes within decorative porcelain vases instead of openly using them. Hannah, in the game, remarks, “Even after all these years of marriage, she’s still got secrets like that.
Originally, Barlow intended for the narrative of Her Story to unfold on a platform resembling YouTube from the 2010s – an online drama representative of that era. However, as the story evolved, influenced by his grandmothers’ lives, it no longer seemed contemporary. So he decided to shift the timeline and place it on a 90s Windows computer instead. As he puts it, “This change allowed me to focus more intentionally on the themes I wanted to explore, feeling secure in my decision to move the story back into the 20th century.
The ambiguity in Her Story surrounding Eve and Hannah is only partly deliberate.
As a game developer, I aimed to leave some gaps in the narrative for players to fill in themselves, especially since the tale revolves around a woman concealing the truth. This approach invites players to engage their imagination and uncover hidden aspects of the story.
He discovered Christopher Porco’s police transcripts, a man in his early 20s who brutally attacked his parents with an axe. He input these records into a search system reminiscent of Her Story. As he typed words related to money, more relevant information surfaced. “Then I was typing words related to money and it was pulling up more,” Barlow explains. “Later, I discovered that he murdered his parents for the inheritance, and at that moment, it felt like a light bulb illuminating.
If Barlow carefully crafted detailed backgrounds for his character and included secrets worth uncovering, he could induce a “Porco lightbulb moment” for players, he contemplated. Thus, he penned an extensive manuscript detailing each Her Story character’s events over the previous 20 years and the weeks leading to the interviews. He narrated the story in a way reminiscent of an impressionist painter, conveying its core while leaving room for players to imagine the finer details.
In that sense, the ambiguity was planned and deliberate.
However, Barlow didn’t aim to spark a discussion over whether Eve and Hannah are twins or one individual exhibiting two personalities due to Dissociative Identity Disorder in his narrative. He made no deliberate attempts to obscure this truth, with him stating, “I certainly didn’t do it consciously.
The debate surprised him but made sense–although he sometimes felt uneasy about it.
In a compelling article published on Offworld at the time, journalist Laura Hudson – known for her belief in the one-woman perspective – criticized the portrayal of mental health within the game, labeling it as its “deadly weakness.” She contended that this representation reinforced the harmful stereotype linking mental illness to violence.
That popular theory of the story made him “uncomfortable,” Barlow says/
He expressed, “I felt inclined to offer my perspective on this matter, to prevent others from assuming I have poor ideas or thoughts. However, it also made me uneasy to see such reactions, given these are the very opinions and creations I’ve shared publicly.
As a gamer, I’ve learned that the open-endedness of space within games allows players like me to infuse our own interpretations and projections onto it.
When I note that he seems to contradict one of the two main understandings of the game, Barlow responds by implying that his responses can stand on their own without further explanation.
He admits that he didn’t feel the need to disclose the exact sequence of events in the story, as his primary focus was on exploring themes like personal identity, self-image, our assumptions about others, and how we perceive actions. In essence, he finds these aspects more intriguing than the details of the tale itself. Moreover, if people are discussing it, they’re essentially delving into what fascinates him. Regardless of one’s interpretation, all those elements in the story resonate with him.
Barlow admits it’s “occasionally tempting” to return to Her Story.
He explains that he has no plans to create a new iteration since the original is easily accessible across platforms like Steam and app stores and continues to hold up over time.
Deep within me, a tiny spark flickers, dreaming about crafting a follow-up. With my newfound skills and improved equipment for capturing live action, I believe the journey would be smoother, I muse. However, it’s unlikely to be an extension of Eve’s tale.
Completely transformed individual, a fresh tale. There’s likely immense interest in it and it promises to be an enjoyable, relaxed experience,” he expresses.
However, Barlow tends to favor the more daring choices over the safer ones. Instead of opting for what’s tried and true, he usually chooses the path that “might not work,” a decision rooted in his initial apprehension when embarking on the creation of Her Story.
As a fan, I find myself reflecting on the limited number of years we have to experience life’s adventures. While I still have the opportunity to decide my path, I’ll opt for the challenging, thrilling journey, as it adds a unique spark to my existence.
Ironically, the only way a sequel would happen, he says, is if there were two Sam Barlows.
He expresses that if he had the ability, he would create a duplicate of himself so that another version of him could work on Her Story 2.
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2025-06-24 21:10