Hey guys, I am new here. Little background. Skyrim was the first elder scrolls game I ever picked up due to a recommendation by my cousin. I loved it so I started playing oblivion and I am still playing through the Skyrim DLC and Oblivion's main quest at the moment and I love these games.
Here is my opinion on where the next game will take place. So, we know that the white-gold concordat banned Talos worship, gave the Thalmor free passage through the empire, and also allowed them to occupy a portion of Hammerfell, which caused conflict that ended with the Thalmor defeated, the Empire released its control and Hammerfell was left independent, but weak.
I have heard some speculation that the next game will be back in time, ^ above there was an idea to play the events leading to the battle of red mountain, I think that would be the only past based game that I would be OK with, and Bethesda seems to have their pattern set as continuing into the future, their lore is easier to write that way. Also I don't believe that it will be set apart from Tamriel, just because that would essentially be starting a new game, and with their time constraints as it is, they cannot afford that. I also cannot see the whole of Tamriel being a game for multiple reasons. One, it would limit their future games, their quality would suffer (by this I mean they typically love to make a "smaller" game with more detail, Bethesda loves their detail, and I do as well) and time constraints barely had them finishing Skyrim if 5 years, all of Tamriel would be unreal. Different starts for different races would be cool, but that would again be ALOT of work, and not everyone would experience that, it would be more work for fewer people, so I think that they would rather focus on one main game that everyone will experience in a somewhat similar way.
So that was what I don't think will happen, here is what I think is likely.
I am going to preface this by saying I am a wood elf, a sneaky little guy with a bow, so I would love to see Valenwood, and heck I would even love to see Elsweyr, but I think the most likely will be Hammerfell. The empire fought the Dominion, that left them weakened, they fought the Stormcloaks in Skyrim, and regardless of your side choice, it was a battle, both sides are weak now. The Thalmor have free passage around Tamriel and they were feeding the Stormcloaks, but did not want Ulfric to win, they just wanted the empire as weak as possible. This makes me think that they are planning an attack, plus there was talk of another great war soon. I think that Hammerfell will play a big part in this. Hammerfell is weak and would give the dominion a good foothold in Tamriel, but I think that the empire wants Hammerfell back under their control as well, while the Redguards are divided, some want independence and some would like to see the empire back in. There are many directions this could go, and this post is already long enough. However, with Solstheim's and Skyrim's great Dwemer ruins, the desire for Dwemer knowledge is growing greater, and Hammerfell would continue to have a lot of Dwemer artifacts and new areas to explore. Also this would provide a change of scenery that many people desire. I am one of those people who believe that Bethesda trademarking Redguard was originally for a DLC that they expanded into a game. Yes I know there was an old Redguard game that Todd Howard worked on that was in the Hammerfell area, and Daggerfall while we are on this subject, but I don't Hammerfell was done justice in those games, since it wasn't completely explorable. Also if you say that you cannot use a location that was in another game, Arena would have been the last game. Morrowind was filled with Dunmer, but Oblivion and Skyrim were primarily human races, it allows the mainstream gamers to enjoy the game I guess.
Obviously we are all just guessing, it comes down to who is the best guesser because Bethesda sure isn't telling. One thing I do know is that I love these games.