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Now that the shortest month is over, it’s time to look at the big games coming in March. This episode of New Releases includes some cute and cuddly Nintendo titles like Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn and Yoshi’s Crafted World, but there are also some darker titles if that’s what you’re into–and that’s not just a reference to The Division 2‘s Dark Zones. You can also draw your blade and slay demons in Devil May Cry 5 and battle Sengoku-era beasts in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

Devil May Cry 5 — March 8

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC

The next chapter in the demon-slaying saga gives you three playable characters: the ever-popular Dante, the relative newcomer Nero, and a totally new character named V. Each has a different combat style, and as usual, you’ll be rated on your performance in each stylish action battle. Oh, and Dante can fight with a straight-up motorcycle.

Further Reading:

Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn — March 8

Available on: 3DS

The first of the cutesy Nintendo games this month is actually an enhanced port. Kirby’s Epic Yarn was a Wii title first, but the 3DS version includes new abilities and minigames you can play as Meta Knight and King Dedede. If you beat the original, you can try again in the harder Devilish Mode.

Further Reading:

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 — March 15

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is moving from New York City to Washington, DC. Survivors in the capitol must fight off bands of raiders, and you can do that in four-player co-op. You can also take on others in competitive multiplayer and suit up in your best gear to brave new raids and Dark Zones.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice — March 22

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC

From Software brought us Dark Souls and Bloodborne, but Sekiro is something different. For one, everyone will play the same shinobi, who can grapple around the world with a special mechanical arm and actually revive after being killed. Sekiro also has no multiplayer, which means you’ll be taking on tough bosses all by your lonesome.

Further Reading:

Yoshi’s Crafted World — March 29

Available on: Switch

Kirby’s world is spun from yarn, and Yoshi’s is crafted out of cardboard. You can replay a level backwards to find secrets in what was once the stage’s backdrop, and you can play the entire adventure with a friend by passing a Joy-Con. Yoshi himself can dress up in various cardboard costumes as he rides atop cars, planes, and other hand-crafted vehicles.

Further Reading:

This is a general overview of March’s big games, but next week New Releases will take a more focused look at other titles on the way, like One Piece: World Seeker.

Nintendo has shared some intriguing new information about its workforce in Japan. As spotted by analyst Daniel Ahmad, the Nintendo of Japan recruitment page contains some statistics about the people who work for Nintendo of Japan, including their average age, salary, length of employment, and more.

Nintendo of Japan employees more than 2,000 people, and their average age is 38.6. On average, a Nintendo of Japan employee makes $80,000 per year, and has worked at Nintendo for 13.5 years. Also notable is 7hrs, 45mins, which is the average length of a work day for a Nintendo of Japan employee.

As mentioned, this information only pertains to Nintendo of Japan. The Mario maker has subsidiaries in other places around the world, including Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Europe, among other locations. Recruitment statistics do not appear to be available for those places.

In other Nintendo corporate news, Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime recently announced that he is retiring in April.

“Thank you for your never-ending support, and for your passionate love of Nintendo. And personally, for giving me a Mushroom Kingdom full of incredible memories that I will never forget, ever.

In another piece of news, the Nintendo Switch was released two years ago today, on March 3, 2017. The console has been a huge success; Nintendo has sold more than 32 million Switch units as of December 31, 2018, which is a massive improvement over the Wii U.

Uncharted director Amy Henig was hired by EA to work on a new Star Wars game at Dead Space studio Visceral. It was an exciting proposition, but it wasn’t meant to be. Visceral was closed and Hennig moved on. Now, Hennig is speaking about the matter.

Asked to reflect on her time at EA and working on Star Wars, Hennig told VentureBeat that the game faced a number of challenges. Starting off, Visceral as a developer was “very expensive” to run in part because it was in the middle of the San Francisco Bay Area. “It’s very hard to support compared to studios that cost a third of the price in places where there are tax credits. That’s a hard sell. That was a constant drumbeat, feeling like you had to justify the existence of a Visceral,” she said.

Visceral’s Star Wars title was to be a third-person “cinematic traversal action game,” Hennig said, and this led to the next problem. Making that type of game using an engine built for FPS games–EA’s Frostbite engine–was “a hurdle,” she said.

“But we knew going in that that was the goal. We were going to put this functionality into Frostbite. A lot of the team was hired to do Battlefield, and so that was a bit of a cultural shift, to make this different kind of game,” she said. “Normally you cache for the project you’re making rather than trying to–it’s hard to convert the people you have if that’s not their type of game.”

The game was “very far” into development, Hennig said. Another challenge that came up was the game’s shift in direction. Responding to market trends and player feedback, EA decided to “pivot” the design to make it a title that players could “come back to and enjoy for a long time to come,” which suggested it was becoming more multiplayer-focused.

Hennig, who has extensive expertise with single-player games like Uncharted, acknowledged that the game was trying to include “other modes and extensibility” to make the title more than a purely linear game, but it never worked out.

“I think that where EA is at right now, they’re looking more at games as a service, the live service model. More open world stuff, trying to crack that nut, versus this more finite crafted experience,” she explained. We were trying to make sure that we built in other modes and extensibility and all that stuff. But the fundamental spine of the thing was more like Uncharted than one of these open world, live service games. That’s a big gap to cross.

“I don’t know how you get from here to there. And then to try to push something that may not quite fit into the portfolio as it is today, and try to do it at this really expensive studio–it was a bit of an uphill battle. All of that stuff is publicly known.”

Hennig admitted that she understands EA’s decision to go a different way.

“It was something we were struggling with the whole time. Does this make sense? Is this something EA really wants to do? I certainly regret the fact that there’s a lot of good game there that I would love to see the light of day. A lot of people would. One never knows what might happen,” she said.

The Visceral Star Wars game was reportedly rebooted, with EA Vancouver put to work on the title. EA Vancouver supposedly used some of the assets from Visceral’s game, but transitioned the title to become an open-world experience. This game was canceled in January.

Also in the VentureBeat story, Hennig talked about how a game like the first Uncharted might not be made today, when multiplayer and online connectivity are so prevalent. “I don’t think a game like the first Uncharted, even though it was the foundational footprint for that series, would be a viable pitch today. The idea of a finite eight-ish-hour experience that has no second modes, no online– the only replayability was the fact that you could unlock cheats and stuff like that. No multiplayer, nothing. That doesn’t fly anymore. Now you have to have a lot of hours of gameplay. Eight would never cut it. Usually some sort of online mode. And of course you see where things are pushing, toward live services and battle royale and games as a service.”

Incorporating these online elements “play less nicely with story,” Hennig said. “They’re less conducive to traditional storytelling. That has a shape and an arc and a destination, an end. A game that is a live service, that continues, does not.”

The entire VentureBeat interview is thoroughly fascinating and absolutely worth your time to read top to bottom. Go read it here.

While Visceral/EA Vancouver’s Star Wars game may no longer be happening, EA is reportedly working on a smaller-scale Star Wars title that can be released sooner. Additionally, Apex Legends developer Respawn is working on a third-person Star Wars action game called Jedi: Fallen Order; it’ll be revealed in April.

With Halo Infinite coming to E3 2019 later this year, it appears this will finally be the year we learn more about the long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s Halo 5: Guardians.

Ahead of the big show, a fan has create a mock-up for what they imagine the Halo Infinite menu screen could look like. This is only a concept. It’s not real. But it did catch the attention of Halo franchise director Frank O’Connor, who said it is “very cool.” The video was made by GoBroPros YouTube channel. It is a sleek menu screen that borrows some of the sensibilities from the menu screens of Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Halo 5; have a look:

Halo Infinite, which is in development for Xbox One and PC, is said to be a “spiritual reboot” of the series, but it’s not exactly clear what that means at this point. It is rumoured to be a launch title for the next wave of Xbox hardware that Microsoft will supposedly announce at E3.

Intriguingly, a report from Brad Sams claims Halo Infinite will have RPG mechanics of some kind. There is also a report that claims Microsoft will release Halo Infinite’s multiplayer and single-player separately.