Interactive fiction

Barlow was active in the interactive fiction scene of the late 1990s,[5] most notably releasing the game Aisle in 1999. It won the XYZZY Award for Best Use of Medium. Like his later Silent Hill games, Aisle features a psychologically damaged viewpoint character, a contemporary setting and a positive meaning at its heart.[6]
Influences

Barlow frequently cites novelists and film directors are having influenced his work. He claims that Hitchcock, Luis Buñuel and J.G. Ballard influenced his work on Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.[7] Both Silent Hill titles reference Shakespeare (Silent Hill Origins features a performance of The Tempest,[8] whilst Silent Hill: Shattered Memories has multiple references to Twelfth Night). He has also been inspired by David Lynch, Mark Z. Danielewski, Paul Auster, Shirely Jackson, The Exorcist and Gene Wolfe.[9] Consistently his most frequently cited influence is Hitchcock, for example: "I bored everyone with Hitchcock and talking about his techniques and his ideas of suspense"[10] and "Hitchcock said that all horror goes back to childhood, that's why it's a universal thing -- it's a fundamental".[11] Barlow cites Cronenberg’s The Fly and Paul Schrader’s Cat People as showing how best to reboot an existing story.[12]
Video games

Barlow has worked on at least nine titles since he joined the video game industry in 2002, seven of which have been released.[13][14]

Aisle (1999) (developer)
Serious Sam: Next Encounter (2004) (designer)
Crusty Demons (2007) (lead designer)
Ghost Rider (2007) (lead designer)
Silent Hill: Origins (2007) (lead designer and writer)
Elveon (unreleased) (lead designer and writer)
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (2009) (lead designer and writer)
Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun (unreleased) (director)
Her Story (2015) (director and writer)