I've been replaying parts of Redguard and Morrowind again while the wait drags on. If the next game lands in Hammerfell, the books and older titles have already set up more than most people credit.
The short version from the sources: the province has a messy independence streak, deep Yokudan roots, and old grudges with the Dominion that predate the current games. Nothing official on location yet, just the usual rumour mill. The TES VI pillar has the latest confirmed bits from Todd.
Start with the obvious. "The Redguard" (the old game) and the in-game book "Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition" both lay out the Ra Gada wave and the way Yokudan culture clashed with everyone already living there. The Forebears versus Crowns split still feels unresolved in the lore. Add "The Alik'r" and the various mentions in the PGE3 and you get a picture of a desert that actively resists outsiders. That gives any story room to explore without inventing new factions from scratch.
The Dominion angle is already seeded too. Summerset's interest in southern Hammerfell shows up in the Second Era material and carries forward. The Lhotunics tried to thread a middle path and mostly got remembered as sellouts. If the game wants conflict that feels earned, it can pull straight from those old tensions instead of dropping a fresh war on us.
One underused thread is the old Dwemer presence along the coast and the lingering effects of the Numidium event. Yagrum Bagarn's comments and a few Redguard texts hint at lost coastal holdings. Nothing major, but enough to tie back to Morrowind without forcing it.
I've aged through enough of these gaps to know the team will probably add their own layers. Still, the existing canon already does the heavy lifting on why Hammerfell matters beyond "big desert province."
For anyone new here, the introduce yourself thread is still the easiest place to jump in.
Which single book or in-game text do you think the writers should lean on hardest for the setting, and why?