Urdnot Wrex of Mass Effect is a fan favorite squadmate Sheperd can recruit for his team. He fills the archetype of Bioware's typical battle hungry warrior. When not on the front lines absorbing punishment with his heavy armor, redundant organs, and blasting enemies with his shotgun, he keeps to himself in the hold of the Normandy while usually answering with dry wit and blunt manners. Only after getting to know the krogan behind the gun do you realize that Wrex is not just a mercenary but a cultural savior of his dying species.
The Red Menace
The first time you meet him, Wrex is wearing a striking red suit of krogan-grade body armor. Even after you upgrade him, red is clearly his dominate color scheme. His eyes are blood red and his crest is red, which is even more striking as not many other krogan seem to share Wrex's unique color. But he has one more identifiable feature that sets him apart even other krogan: the claw like scar draped over the right side of his face and crest which also begs the question on how he got it.
Despite a rather top heavy looking body, Wrex, like the rest of his krogan brethren, are built like tanks. From one perspective, Wrex's dark humor probably stems from his incredible threshold for pain and damage. Wrex may sarcastically suggest using force to get what you need because he's probably been through the pain he's suggesting and called it a Friday.
Though Wrex is very rough and tumble in demeanor, he has his pride as a krogan warrior and respects anyone who proves themselves in battle.
“Just Because I Like You Doesn't Mean I Won't Kill You.”
While it's unclear just how old Wrex is, it is obvious that he has lived long enough to have more enemies than interesting stories.
As a krogan battlemaster, Wrex has access to several biotic powers as well as training in shotguns and assault rifles. Wrex's job is essentially doing damage and lots of it at medium to close range. Other team mates may have skills in decryption or electronics, but almost all of Wrex's skills focus on staying alive on the battlefield while making sure everything else dies quicker.
But despite his potential for destruction, Wrex reveals a side that isn't characteristic of most krogan. As Wrex reveals how his species is inching slowly to extinction due to being nearly sterile thanks to the genophage, he also reveals how he is one of the few, if not the only krogan, who cares about saving his people.
Good Old Fashioned Krogan Hospitality
Wrex becomes an emotionally involving character after you talk to him more and more. Even though he works for credits like any other krogan, he hasn't turned his back on his people, at least not entirely. Wrex believed his people should focus on breeding in order to rebuild their once striving culture and that retaliation against the turians for using the genophage against them would only end with their demise. And even though Wrex gathered many followers, his own father, a krogan warlord, tried killing him for not going to war. After receiving his trademark scar and killing his own father, Wrex became fed up with his people's obsession with war and left his home planet of Tuchanka to be his own master.
After telling his story, it's hard not to feel sorry for the old brute. Wrex even proves his old krogan pride is still alive by nearly killing Shepard when he discovers their mutual enemy, Saren, had commissioned a cure to the genophage to produce an unstoppable krogan army.
Wrex acts as a bridge between the awesome savagery of his tribal people and the “humane” perspective of saving his own people from their self-destructive path. Everything about him exemplifies his people and yet his hope to save his people from extinction also marks him as an oddball among his people.
Death Is For the Lazy
Wrex is the hardest working krogan this side of the Terminus Systems. Sure any krogan can be hired muscle to fight against the deadliest assassins in the galaxy. Wrex may have done everything from bounty hunting to bodyguarding to simple merc work. But what Wrex is dealing with, especially by Mass Effect 2, will affect his entire species. Wrex organizes his tribe, clan Urdnot, to become a neutral ground so that fertile females from other tribes may remain safe. Even after his intentions of saving his people, he still faces opposition from the other conservative tribes.
Because of Shepard's position in the galaxy to fight the reapers, Wrex's place as a zion from the krogan culture has an impact on him as he possibly makes a decision that will decide the fate of the krogan civilization.
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