During the Japanese Nintendo Direct 2026.6.9 broadcast、it was suddenly announced that “Touhou Koumakyou : New Classic　～ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil” is going to be released on the Nintendo Switch!!

For the first time ever, a remake of Touhou Koumakyou from the Touhou Project series.
“Touhou Koumakyou：New Classic　～ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.” on sale from Thurday, 10th of September 2026. #NintendoDirectJP

— Nintendo (@Nintendo) June 9, 2026

All this information was first revealed in the Nintendo Direct, and marks the first time a Touhou Project Shoot ‘em Up mainline game has been remastered for consoles.

As the name NewClassic suggest, it appears that it will be a version of EoSD that’s been remastered to match the resolution of the  Nintendo Switch. The playable characters will of course be the duo Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame. It seems that even their portraits have been redrawn.

What’s more, it will include not only the original songs, but also newly arranged versions.

Finally, the original un-remastered version will also be playable on the Nintendo Switch.

Development is being done by the newly formed circle “Shanghai AliceR eprise“. According to an Alliance Arts post on X, it’s “a circle that was started by ZUN”. Does that mean it’s different from Team Shanghai Alice…? The game will be published by Alliance Arts, who have also published “Touhou Danmaku Kagura Phantasia Lost”, among other titles.

For the development of “Touhou Koumakyou：New Classic”, we made a new circle “ShanghaiAliceReprise”.
We will be holding a press conference about the formation of the circle and about the development of “Touhou Koumakyou：New Classic” at midnight! (It’s quite late at night, so don’t force yourself to stay awake.) (From ZUN）https://t.co/9la1GW8a4y

— ShanghaiAliceReprise (@SAliceReprise) June 9, 2026

Until now, Touhou Shoot ‘em ups have only been released on PC and on Steam, and console ports have only been a dream. Now, the game that’s unplayable on the current and latest Windows OS, and to which “The original source code has been lost” and thus has been difficult to make a port of, will finally be playable on Nintendo Switc, Steam, and PlayStation 5.

They’ve also made an official site for “Touhou Koumakyou：New Classic　～ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil” . The Nintendo Store and Steam pages are also public. You can even see an animation for some of the characters’ new sprites on the Steam page!

東方紅魔郷：New Classic　～ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. Official Site
https://touhou-project.news/shanghai-alice-reprise/

Nintendo Store
https://store-jp.nintendo.com/item/software/D70010000124781

Dodge the barrage, defeat the enemies, and brave the Scarlet Mist Incident.

EoSD, from the Touhou Project series made by Team Shanghai Alice, makes its debut onNintendo Switch™/Nintendo Switch 2.

Control the shrine maiden Reimu and the magician Marisa to resolve the incident gripping Gensoukyou.

The New Classic version features high-resolution visuals and completely re-arranged background music by ZUN.
In addition, a new option allows you to attempt the game with unlimited lives.

You can also play the Classic version, which recreates the original 2002 gameplay as closely as possible.

ーー”Introduction text for “Touhou Koumakyou：New Classic　～ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.” on the Nintendo Store

Touhou Koumakyou – The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, with music and graphics remastered by an older and wiser creator (self-described).

Touhou Koumakyou – the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is a vertical-scrolling 2D shoot-‘em-up where you weave through dazzling curtains of bullets.

Take control of the shrine maiden Reimu or the magician Marisa, and set out to resolve the incident threatening Gensokyou. 

Dodge and slip your way forward through barrages of bullets dense enough to fill the entire screen.

Make full use of each character’s unique shots to defeat your enemies—while keeping your life count from dropping to zero under their attacks. 

Every shot type plays differently: some automatically home in on enemies, while others deliver superior firepower in a head-on assault.

The New Classic edition features upscaled high-resolution graphics, with every track rearranged by ZUN.

It also adds a brand-new mode where you can take on the challenge with unlimited lives.

You can also play the Classic version, which recreates the original 2002 gameplay as closely as possible.

ーーIntroductory text for “Touhou Koumakyou：New Classic　～ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil” on the Steam store page

 

 

On the 9th of June at midnight, Shanghai Alice Reprise held a livestream on their YouTube channel, Press release for the Formation of Shanghai Alice Reprise & Development of “Touhou Koumakyou：New Classic　〜 the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. Below is a summary article of its contents.

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JYUNYA makes a surprising appearance in the stream. Turns out, JYUNYA is a joint representative for Shanghai Alice Reprise.

And of course ZUN also made an appearance. This time, he’s appearing as a member of Shanghai Alice reprise. He was told to wear a suit, but he said “I don’t want to”. ZUN is also a joint representative for the circle. This circle is a new doujin circle, different from ZUN’s usual Team Shanghai Alice. One that’s a “gathering of people who’ve been making doujin games since a long time ago”.

ZUN was also concerned about the fact that EoSD is unplayable on modern PCs, so this game won’t just be releasing on Nintendo Switch, but also on PC and PlayStation. What’s more, it will be localized into 10 languages (Counting Japanese, it’ll be available in 11 languages)!　This will be the first time an official mainline game gets localized! JYUNYA also handles graphics for the game, and since it’s an older game “The text were all images, so it was really difficult”, according to him.

ZUN says that “while we’re calling it a remake, it preserves the original version by quite a lot. That’s why we’re calling it New Classic”. He also says that one of the tentative titles was “Touhou Koumakyou : Learning from the Past”.

This remake makes extensive use of past data, and it all started when JYUNYA made a version based on the old development environment that ran on the switch. Thanks to the abilities of Rutakku, a programmer active in Desunoya☆ and AQUASTYLE, along with other skilled programmers of AQUASTYLE, they were able to finish the prototype for the Nintendo Switch. Showing that to ZUN was apparently the catalyst for this remake.

ZUN has re-arranged all of the tracks in EoSD for this game. Apparently, it was quite the challenge to re-arrange them. He also clarified that this game “is not a fan-work”.

In order to make it work anew, they made sure to keep as many of the behaviours of the original game unchanged where possible, as well as revert any bugs they had fixed back to their original state. It appeared to have been a very meticulous development process. New Classic was also created to use as much of ZUN’s original program as the base.

The sprites were also redrawn by Unabara Iruka of Twillight Frontier, who also did the sprites for Touhou 19, According to JYUNYA, the team up happened due to JYUNYA enthusiastically asking “It’s been 20 years, but would you like to make a game together again?” to Unabara, who was his senior.

Like in recent games, the player character’s sprites were handled by Ki-san (ZUN’s wife). She was asked to help out just 2 weeks before the deadline for the Nintendo Direct. Even though the situation was quite chaotic, she gladly accepted the request. After submitting, Ki-san said “I’m going to the PTA”; it was a demonstration of the powerful skills befitting a modern-day doujin developer. Shanghai Alice Reprise is off to a promising start.

The portraits were made by AQUASTYLE’s illustrator Curee, who’s well known for his work on “Genso Wanderer” and “Danmaku Kagura”. He poured his heart and soul into recreating the EoSD portratits. He made up to 15 variations of the illustrations, and through continuous trial and error, was able to figure out “this is ZUN’s style; if you go further, it stops being ZUN art”. What’s more, this time, the portraits appear to be full-body!

And just as the portraits were about to be finished, ZUN showed them the original old concept art. According to JYUNYA, when ZUN showed him the images, he went “If you had them, tell us sooner! Show us sooner!” It was a playful anecdote that’s typical of ZUN.

Here we get a surprise appearance from a wine bottle. The label was made by JYUNYA, and is also used by the Shanghai Alice Reprise’s Profile on X. According to JYUNYA “While Team Shanghai Alice Drinks Beer, Shanghai Alice Reprise will be drinking wine!. And then they toasted with a “Reprise!”

And here we have a special preview of one of ZUN’s arrangements! A sneak peek at the arrangement for “A Soul as Red as a Husk Cherry”! The sound source had been driven to a new direction, and the sounds of the ZUNpets that were said to have been rendered “unusable” in Touhou 20 have been Revived…!!

And on the day of the broadcast, ZUN completed and submitted his arrangement of the famous “U.N. Owen was Her?”! He confidently said that it was going to be “cooler than all the fan-arrangements”. And not just the music, it seems that ZUN will also be involved in the development of the game itself.

According to ZUN “They captured what I probably wanted to do back then and created it accordingly”.

Additionally, it seems that this game will feature a newly included “challenge mode”. The player’s live counter becomes “infinite” and the mode itself was made to be enjoyable even for those who’re beginners to Touhou. While you’ll have an infinite amount of lives, the game will keep track of the number of times you’ve pichuun’d. The goal of this mode will be about gradually improving your skills and slowly reducing that number. That said, it is still in-development, so the specifics are likely to change frequently.

There were a lot of twist and turns in adding this mode, and ZUN gave all sorts of opinions on how to make a system that ” doesn’t lose the joy of clearing things as you get better”. According to JYUNYA the mode was born from the feeling of “wanting to surpass the you of yesterday. So whether you’re just stating now, or if you’ve cleared EoSD 24 years ago, let’s play it again one more time!”

Aside from that, New Classic will also include QoL features that were implemented in later installments of Touhou games, such as the “Boss Marker”, among others.

“Touhou Koumakyou：New Classic　〜 the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.” is slated to release on the 10th of September. It will be releasing on the Nintendo Switch, Steam, and PlayStation 5 and in 11 languages.

 

ZUN : “Look forward to Touhou Koumakyou New Classic. Development will be by Shanghai Alice Reprise, publishing will be done by Alliance Arts, but the rights will still be with me. So whether it’s EoSD fanwork or New Classic fanwork, as long as you follow the Touhou Project fanwork guidelines, you don’t need to ask permission. I hope things can continue in that manner. Just making sure to put that out there.”

JYUNYA : “In essence, I’ll be representing Reprise, but Team Shanghai Alice will still be around, ZUN will still be creating as ZUN, and Touhou will remain Touhou, just as it always has. We will respect that as we continue development. On top of that, we will do our best as Reprise!” Please look forward to Touhou Koumakyou New Classic!”

At the end, the two share one final toast! “Reprise!!”!