Kratos - God of War 2018
I can't speak about Kratos as a character in any of the other God of War games since I've never played them, but going into God of War 2018 as my first experience with the franchise in any capacity I love how Kratos develops throughout this game. Even without having any major knowledge of the previous games, the game makes it clear that he feels out of his depth when it comes to raising Atreus and trying to express his feelings properly, and seeing Kratos get explored with layers and depth beyond "murder fucking everything!" was really cool to watch unfold and it might be one of my favourite character developments that happens in a single game.
Nathan Drake - Uncharted (Series)
The initial Uncharted games don't go too heavy on character development, mostly because of how they're made to be standalone stories that don't require playing the previous one to understand the characters and what's going on. Despite that, the series does try to push some heavy character exploration of Drake throughout Uncharted 3, where we get to see how destructive his obsession is with treasure, as it's put a strain on his marriage with Elena to the point they're practically separated between the second and third games, and everyone around him constantly questions what his deal is. By the end of the game he comes around on trying to prove himself and opts to give up treasure hunting entirely to settle down with Elena and live a normal life. Uncharted 4 however shows his unhappiness with such a life though, and the game goes harder on character development than anything until this point as we learn about Drake's backstory and his brother, among other things. It basically takes what Uncharted 3 started to do and goes all in to wrap everything up and give all of the characters a send-off that I think couldn't be done any better and gives us a true insight into a cast that we'd been hunting treasure with for almost a decade.
So, what about the rest of you? What game characters do you think had good development? 🙂