If I watch YT videos a la "New RTS games 2025/2026" there are very interesting projects which give me hope that SC2 is not the end of RTS games.
Starcraft and Starcraft II, and Warcraft I,II,III had great campaigns. So it is kind of ironic that a lot of the games copying them cut the campaigns for the esports focus.
Tempest Rising is a newer RTS (this year) that's also in the C&C style, its highlight is the campaign. (Multiplayer I think is basically in the go-to-discord phase already.) The real problem is that RTS is just an unpopular genre, whether it's taking design inspiration from the C&C branch or the SC branch.
It was particularly visible in how, if you edited the map so that every pile of resources was 50k, so essentially endless, you'd arrive at a stalemate.
Given (effectively) unlimited resources within base distance, Zerg undoubtedly have a fairly substantial advantage and will probably win. Assuming comparable player skills, of course.
Their remax time is 1/3-1/4 that of Protoss/Terran, they can tech-switch near instantaneously, and they have some of the most powerful endgame meta. This was true for SC1 and Brood War, and it's even more true for current SC2.
For example, getting to the 3rd age in AoE 2 ASAP is basically mandatory, but in AoM you can potentially start attacking from the 2nd age. On top of that, getting to the 3rd age in AoE 2 takes much longer than AoM. So there's basically a whole lot of wasted time at the start of an AoE 2 match.
And Aoe2 is consistently getting official updates, there's 3 Indian and 4 Chinese civs now.
It was sad to see the slow and steady enshittification with 2 and 3. The online community is pretty toxic too.