(PC) Can't hear footsteps (sometimes)

Few things 

- in another post on here apex legends is recorded in 24bit/96khz

- making sure your sound output in windows is set to 24bit/48khz(half sample) or 24bit/96khz(full sample) will ensure there's no clipping

- virtual surround is terrible, the game has binaural recorded audio for Stereo/headphones, meaning you have positional audio from the recordings. Adding 7.1 virtual processing on top of it is terrible, whether it be your headphone software, dolby, dts, or windows sonic, gsx1000, or a creative soundcard. Disable them and run stereo.

- equalizer, turn down the bass(<100hz) & 8khz, and up 400hz  and 4khz

- turn game music and dialog down to ~16%, sound effects 100%

The rest is how sensitive your headphones are. Pretty much most close back cheap gaming headphones suck. Get a good pair of open backs with everything else I mentioned above, 👌

As well, if you are a newer player, it will help you to know all legends have different footstep sounds, it would be advantageous for you to get seat time in each to aquire awareness of each characters sounds, as some characters sounds blend with the surrounding environment and don't layer well, this is pronounced as distortion and merging of sounds on low sensitivity cans(headphones)

Good luck.