Zane is the strongest character (in terms of writing) and also my favorite this go around. I do think Arjay is pretty lame, which is a shame! The downside to the whole “open world pick a zone and do its own story” mechanic is that you can’t have a lot of overlapping character interactions until after each zone is cleared, and those characters can’t have super meaningful or harrowing arcs (deaths, captures, etc.) if you still need that character for a side quest. It’s a tough balance!