As of PHP 7.1.0, negative string offsets are also supported. So, if you keep up with the times, you can access the last character in the string like this:
$str[-1]
At the request of a @mickmackusa, I supplement my answer with possible ways of application:
<?php
$str='abcdef';
var_dump($str[-2]); // => string(1) "e"
$str[-3]='.';
var_dump($str); // => string(6) "abc.ef"
var_dump(isset($str[-4])); // => bool(true)
var_dump(isset($str[-10])); // => bool(false)