I know it'll sadly never happen under Ubisoft's watch, but I would absolutely kill for a new HoMM game that combined HoMM2's graphical aesthetic with the game mechanics from HoMM3.
People have been praising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_of_Might_and_Magic:_Old...
Released this year. Homm3 mechanics, aesthetic close to Homm2.
You are not alone!
Could The Battle for Wesnoth fit into that description?
There’s the mod homm3 succession wars that kinda do this. They recreate homm2 in the engine of 3, and thus also bring in a lot of the gameplay/qol improvements from 3 like the magic system and more tiers of creatures