How has no one said Catherine yet? Her character arc, place in the fiction, dialogue, carefree way of speaking and her interactions with the main character?
My other picks would be:
D-Dog, Metal Gear Solid V - No character development? You find him as a puppy, he grows up, he has an eye-patch and later in the game you can give him an eye implant.
Nick Valentine, Fallout 4 Em, Until Dawn Peter Stormare, In general but also for his performance in Until Dawn as Dr. Hill Fiona, Tales from the Borderlands Singing Shopkeeper, Crypt of the Necrodancer and, of course, The Entire Cast of, Contradiction
Until Dawn: Mike; the ultimately brave and soft-hearted bro I expected to hate but ended up loving.
SOMA: Catherine. Though your AI companion, she never ventured into Cortana territory. There were long stretches of the game where I wished I could hear her voice. She was also a flawed yet well-meaning character in her own right.
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture: Rev. Jeremy Wheeler. A kind-hearted man who violates his personal ethics in the hope of being moral.
Fallout 4: My own character, Emily, and intrepid, humanitarian reporter Piper Wright. We make an adorable couple.
Jenks (Contradiction), the woman in Her Story (I forget her name- their names), Chloe Price (from Life is Strange), Piper (Fallout 4), and Lorraine (the Park). That's all I can think of at the moment. That's probably the order of my top five characters this year actually.
I was trying to think of a cool character from Bloodborne to add, but while there are cool characters (Father Gascoigne for example) they're best for their back stories and not necessarily for what happens with them in the game.
I want to nominate the cast of SOMA in a separate category, namely "Grounded and Straight Characters". Since they don't stand a chance in the usual rigmarole that only ever includes the funniest characters or satirically handled archetypes, I think they deserve a mention for stellar voice acting and good writing.
Moira "Fucking Technology" Burton Is definitely up there for me. Not really because she swears so much (in the English version of the game), but more because she helps return the series to the camp early beginnings and writing of the first three Resident Evil games.
I think I'm going to side with this one. There is no other character this year that zapped me into a state of glee as quickly with screen-presence. Loaderbot is the one-time joke that just kept giving, and giving, and giving. And by the end of the series, he both literally and metaphorically carried the journey to its incredible closing.
Edit: I'm going to spoiler that. Just in case. It's pretty indirect?
PSA: Please remember to say what game it's from for the benefit of those of us who don't play every single triple A title! I have no idea who a few of y'all are talking about.
That said, I just went through my top 10 or 15 or so games, and not a one character stood out to me. Holy crap. That's pretty damning for my game choices this year.
Edit: My PSA goes double for indie games since there are a bojillion of them.
I can see Chloe being a very important character for sure. The story gives her a lot of room to be developed. I also like Chloe, I never once found her annoying. Chloe was exasperating in the same way a friend can be exasperating...but you would never leave them.
On topic: Definitely Chloe Price from Life Is Strange. I've known enough broken people that she hit really close to home.
I actually found her plenty annoying, irrational, confrontation, and just plain bitchy at times - but that's what made her such a good character.
Jup. I think some people sometimes make the mistake of confusing sympathetic and unsympathetic character traits with whether a person is badly written or not. With that in mind I'm on the same boat as a lot of other people in saying that Emily is fucking awesome
All of the new characters in Mortal Kombat X are good. The 4 new young heroes are great, the best being Cassie Cage. Well acted and performed, very fun to play as and gives great depth to the characters of Sonya and Johnny.
A great year for new characters. Final vote is probably for Chun, as I've never seen myself reflected so much in a game character and it was refreshing. She's so pragmatic without being villainous or sociopathic. She just cares about things within a range of priorities and possibilities. Often it makes her (and me) feel like an alien around other people.
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