A Steam thread about the remaster of the fifth installment.

Perhaps the biggest reason why Heroes 6 and 7 failed is that Ubisoft's expectations and vision for the game and the series differed from those of the players? To sell a product, you need a brand. Not an old-school atmosphere, but a colorful and appealing brand. Heroes 6 was an attempt to add color to the brand and attract new players. But, unfortunately, the old players didn't like it.

Heroes 7 was a twisted attempt to add color to attract old players. And it failed. It was like a school drama club trying to entertain a young man who is longing for an actress from the Bolshoi Theatre. The gamble didn't pay off. They didn't attract new players, the added colors were stale and buggy, and the old players, to put it mildly, were not satisfied. Players expected to see a playable product, at least from a technical point of view, but Ubisoft decided for some reason that the game could be sold in a beta state. And in the end, it was abandoned in approximately that state.

I want to look forward to new Heroes games again. Many will agree with me that anticipating new installments was a pleasant and interesting experience. Developers shouldn't always listen to fans in everything, but if they decide to make radical changes, this should be preceded by serious calculations and analysis.
     The opinion of the majority is made up of individual opinions, and no company can simply cater to each of them. A good option is polls, where the company itself presents the options that it considers most important to fans, and the fans choose. But even in this case, someone has to create this list, analyzing forums, and other platforms.
I think that the most unique recipe for preserving the uniqueness and old-school feel of the Heroes series is the opinion of reasonable veterans who played the 3rd and 5th installments to death (and some still do), as they are the most representative.