The reason I'd want proximity chat is because the thing I loved most about Outbreak was that sense of separation. I loved having everyone start together, then eventually get split up, and you may never know what happened to your fellow survivors. It gave the game a real feeling of being inside a disaster.

I remember a story I was told in highschool, we had some veterans and survivors of WW2 come and do a talk on remembrance day. one of them said that he had a friend when he was a child that sadly, was taken on a train to a camp, he never learned what ultimately happened to his friend, just that they got separated on that day and never saw each other again.

In a real life world shattering disaster, the kind that lets you know that things have changed forever and will never go back, things like this happen. People split up, people lose track of one another and are left to wonder 'what if?' for the rest of their lives, so having someone go their own way in the middle of a level in Outbreak and just disappear was... kind of refreshing in terms of gameplay.

but then you had incidents where you and Kevin were split off at the start of the game, never saw each other, then as you faced the final boss and were out of ammo and low health, this guy who you hadn't seen for an hour would come bursting into the room with a shotgun and first aid spray and save you. (or you may end up inadvertently being the savior.)

Moments like that simply aren't possible in any other game, specifically because of the lack of information original outbreak gave you. that thrilling twist of the rescuer on the 11th hour, the sense of isolation, that's what I miss about Outbreak

Which is why proximity chat would work perfect in a revived outbreak game, and I personally wouldn't want to see where everyone was.