I would absolutely love a game mode with proximity chat! As a temporary game mode with a separate queue, just to let us try it out. Maybe it could have a dB-manager so people (or at least survivors) were only able to murmur or whisper and everything with loud talking or screaming would be muted? It's be really fun to frantically whisper "the killer is coming, run" or murmur "I'm gonna get ya!" in a chase, or hear a survivor whisper some instructions and then their audio cut out from screaming due to a jump scare.

I think it could be a sort of middle road if there was a voice option for added friends in the game so that people can chat with their friends across platforms. That way people who want to chat with strangers can add people to their friends list while in any lobby (maybe with a category for "besties" or favourites to be able to sort irl-friends into), with the extra step to VC with in-game friends still keeping away the expectation that everyone can/should freely VC with strangers.