During the promotion of Return to Ommadawn, Oldfield told various media outlets and via his social media that he was working on a fourth installment of Tubular Bells. He also hinted that it would be an innovative album, allowing listeners to create their own mixes with a VR app he was designing. However, there was no further news of the project, or of Mike himself, in the following years. In the summer of 2021, a commemorative concert tour for the 50th anniversary of Tubular Bells began in the UK. This event, directed by Robin Smith (Oldfield's collaborator since Tubular Bells II), combined music and dance to an adaptation of Oldfield's album composed by Smith himself and a performance by Circa Contemporary Circus. The tour will run until 2023, coinciding with the Tubular Bells anniversary. In November 2022, an orchestral version of Tubular Bells was performed live by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, and was released physically and via streaming later that year.

In March 2023, Universal Music confirmed that Oldfield had retired from composing in 2018, after recording an 8-minute introductory demo for a Tubular Bells IV that was ultimately never released. This demo, "possibly the last thing Oldfield will ever record," was released online in May via streaming platforms and Oldfield's official YouTube channel, and was also released physically in a commemorative 50th-anniversary edition of Tubular Bells, along with a wealth of merchandise. This edition was added to the previous release (on the occasion of the British Record Store Day celebrations) of the Opus One vinyl in April 2023, which contains the original demos of Tubular Bells from 1971 (and which had already been previously released on the Tubular Bells 2003 DVD and the 2009 reissue).