Best Warzone Audio Settings to Hear Footsteps — Season 4 (Black Ops 7)
By TourneyTime ·
If you can’t hear them, you can’t beat them. In Warzone, footsteps are information — and most players are leaving free intel on the table because their audio is set up wrong.
Good news: fixing it is free. Here’s the exact Season 4 audio mix for Black Ops 7, plus the system-level tweaks on PS5 and PC that the pros actually run.
The quick answer
Set this in the in-game Audio menu and you’re 90% of the way there:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Effects Volume | 100 |
| Gameplay / Music Volume | 0 |
| Cinematic Music Volume | 0 |
| Dialogue Volume | 0–20 |
| Audio Mix | Headphones / Headphone Bass Boost |
| Speaker Output | Stereo |
| Enhanced Headphone Mode | Off |
| Mono Audio | Off |
The logic: crush everything that isn’t a player-made sound, max out the effects channel, and use a headphone-tuned mix so footsteps and gunfire sit right at the front. Quiet world, loud footfall.
Get the in-game mix right
Open Settings → Audio and dial it in:
- Effects Volume — 100. This is the channel footsteps, gunfire and reloads live on. You want it maxed.
- Music Volume — 0. Match music is atmosphere, not information. Kill it. It only masks the sounds that keep you alive.
- Cinematic Music Volume — 0. Same deal for intro and event stingers.
- Dialogue Volume — 0–20. Operator and announcer chatter clutters the mix. Drop it low, or off entirely if you don’t rely on the callouts.
- Mono Audio — Off. You need left/right separation to know which direction a sound came from. Mono throws that away.
Pick the right Audio Mix
This is the single most important setting and the one most players get wrong.
Use a headphone-focused preset — Headphones or Headphone Bass Boost. It boosts the minor noises (footsteps, gear, reloads), softens the loud blasts (explosions, kill streaks), and tightens up directional audio so you can pinpoint where a sound is coming from.
Avoid the music- and cinematic-heavy presets — they’re built for immersion, not for winning gunfights.
Stereo beats surround
Set Speaker Output to Stereo.
Plain stereo gives the most accurate, reliable directional cues. Virtual surround can sound spacious, but it often smears the exact bearing of a sound — and in Warzone the difference between “above me” and “behind me” is the difference between a wipe and a death.
If you’ve got a genuinely good surround headset and you’ve tested it back to back, trust your ears. For everyone else: Stereo, and turn Enhanced Headphone Mode off.
PS5: turn on Audio Focus
This is a free, system-level setting that a huge number of console players have never touched — and it’s one of the biggest single upgrades you can make.
- Go to Settings → Accessibility → Audio Focus
- Enable it
- Set Focus Type to Boost High Pitch
Footsteps live in the high-frequency band, so boosting high pitch lifts them above everything else in the mix. It works with any headset plugged into your DualSense or PS5.
PC: enable Loudness Equalization
The PC equivalent, and it’s just as free:
- Open Control Panel → Sound
- Select your headset
- Go to the Enhancements tab
- Tick Loudness Equalization and click Apply
It dulls the loudest sounds and lifts the quietest, so an explosion next door stops nuking the footsteps you actually need to hear. Don’t see an Enhancements tab? Some modern audio drivers (and many USB gaming headsets) bury equivalent options in their own companion app — check there for a “loudness” or “night mode” style setting.
Don’t forget the obvious
No setting beats a decent pair of headphones with treble-forward sound — footsteps are high-frequency, so a headset that handles treble well will always out-hear cheap, bass-heavy gear. And play with background noise low. The cleanest mix in the world won’t help if your room is louder than the game.
Want the full surround-sound experience? Dolby Atmos for Headphones is still around — grab Dolby Access from the Windows or Xbox Store (there’s a free trial on PC and Xbox; PlayStation doesn’t support it for games). It can help, but with the mix above plus Audio Focus or Loudness Equalization, it’s a nice-to-have now, not a must.
Current for Black Ops 7 / Warzone Season 4 (June 2026)
These settings are verified current as of 22 June 2026, for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 + Warzone Season 4. Audio menu labels shift slightly between updates — if Black Ops 7 renames a preset or adds a new focus mode, we’ll update this page to match.
Sources
- Dexerto — Best Black Ops 7 audio settings to hear footsteps
- Dexerto — Best Warzone audio settings to hear enemy footsteps
- MitchCactus — Black Ops 7 Audio Settings: How to Hear Every Footstep
- Dotesports — Best audio settings in Black Ops 7
- Call of Duty — Black Ops 7 & Warzone Season 04 Patch Notes
Got an audio tweak that’s giving you the edge? Share it in the Warzone Discord — it’s where we trade settings and call out what’s working this season. And for the rest of our current setups, hit the full guides page.
