People still use a limited form of echo navigation. Hearing sounds can give you some information about a space - compare listening to music in a room versus headphones, or the deeply unsettling feeling of a sound-dampened phonebooth.
I wonder why nobody tried the same with audio players. Granted you have to have your head in front of a webcam, so it is uniquely well suited to gamers in front of a pc and not to audiophiles on a sofa, but still.
When I play Valorant and am trying to be sneaky, I will tune out whatever my teammates are saying to listen for footsteps, or other audio cues that might indicate some activity. Using my mouse to rotate my view changes how the sounds come in to my headphones, and allows for some amount of directional awareness.
This is geared towards using shotguns to surprise people, by jumping out and blasting them before they have much time to react. Unfortunately, I'm not perfect at this, and swing out early about 1/3rd to 3/8ths of the time.