In a certain sense, the Warlords of Draenor and Legion expansions both play on very similar themes to WoW's first expansion, the Burning Crusade. Warlords took us to see what Outland looked like before it was Outland, while Legion carries over the late-Warlords theme of demons and the Burning Legion and brings back Illidan Stormrage - hopefully allowing us to explore him more as a character now that he isn't going to just be a raid boss you never see until you've made it to the end of a third raiding tier.
Given that Cataclysm was, in many ways, the thematic sequel to the original World of Warcraft (consider that, other than Naxxramas, all of its major raids were either Elemental, Black Dragon, or Old God themed,) it does not seem out of the question that Blizzard might eventually do a kind of thematic sequel to Wrath of the Lich King.
Wrath is probably the most popular WoW expansion (it had plenty of detractors in its day, mind you,) but Blizzard pretty definitively ended the story of Arthas. It's canon that his soul is drifting through the void - essentially hell, and one that Sylvanas knows she will go to if she can't keep herself alive/undead (or, you know, redeem herself, but I don't think Sylvanas is really considering that option - and in fairness, it may not really be open to her.)
But while Arthas is dead dead dead, the end of Wrath of the Lich King was left very deliberately open. The Scourge was defeated, but not eradicated, and a new Lich King sits on the Frozen Throne. There is plenty of potential for the Scourge to rise up as a threat again.
Still, finding that Bolvar Fordragon has been corrupted by his station would be a serious let-down, a betrayal of his character, and frankly, a pretty straight retread of the story of Arthas. Bolvar Fordragon was the perfect option for the new Lich King because he had proven himself capable of withstanding Arthas' torture. And let us not forget that Arthas had been robbed of his soul well before he took the crown. Bolvar wasn't so much undead as severely cauterized by Red Dragonfire. So he isn't in the state of unrepentant evil that Arthas had already been put in when he became the Lich King and absorbed Ner'zhul.
I could imagine Ner'zhul coming back in some sense - perhaps living on within the Helm of Domination, and finally freed from the will of Arthas - but it seems more likely that Ner'zhul had pretty much ceased to exist by the time we faced the Lich King at the top of Icecrown Citadel.
What I keep coming back to is the fact that we never took Kel'thuzad's phylactery when we defeated him in Naxxramas at level 80.
It does seem like really shoddy hero-work, but to be fair, we did the same with Teron'gor in Auchindoun - beating him, only to kind of walk away when he feel down into the mausoleum's depths, without, you know, checking to make sure that he wasn't alive and eating souls.
But it stands out even more when you consider that in the original Naxxramas, we (ok, not we, but the very tiny percentage of players who beat him) took his phylactery to an Argent Dawn priest to destroy (who was most unfortunately a Cult of the Damned sleeper agent.) It's clear that you've got to do that to deal with a lich, but we most certainly did not do it in Northrend.
The events at Admiral Taylor's garrison strongly suggest that some element of the Scourge, likely the Cult of the Damned (founder: Kel'thuzad,) is still going strong (indeed, we faced them in Cataclysm's Plaguelands and in Mists' Scholomance revamp.)
It's way, way too early to have any clear idea what elements we're going to be working with at the end of Legion. But that being said, we do know that Blizzard wants to push this idea of one expansion leading into the next. Garrosh took us from Mists to Warlords, and Gul'dan is taking us from Warlords to Legion. It's possible that we'll see the Naga elements in Legion lead us to an Azshara expansion, but we've also got the Vrykul, as well as Sylvanas as a major player. Sylvanas is fighting in a quest to save herself from damnation. She's going to be looking at the pre-Scourge Val'kyr for an answer, but perhaps her quest will lead her to discover a re-invigorated Scourge.
This is seriously far down the road, and unlike my ambivalence about Warlords of Draenor it its run-up, I want to make it clear that I am absolutely excited for Legion. But given how iconic and popular the Scourge have been, it seems inevitable that Blizzard is going to find a way to bring them back somehow at some point.
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