Otselotovaya Khvatka

Otselotovaya Khvatka
Type	Private
Headquarters	Russia
Industry	Private military company
Parent	Outer Heaven (mother company)

"No peace without war"

―Otselotovaya Khvatka slogan

Otselotovaya Khvatka (Оцелотовая Хватка, lit. Ocelot's Grasp), known in English as Clawing Ocelot, was a private military company that operated under the mother company Outer Heaven, commanded by Liquid Ocelot. It was based in Russia and utilized the SOP system, using nanomachines to enhance and regulate their senses. The company's name was based on former FOXHOUND member Revolver Ocelot.

Advertisements

Otselotovaya Kvhatka logo

Otselotovaya Khvatka, alongside the other major PMCs during the events of 2014, utilized various advertisements for their company.

One form of advertisement was a TV spot. The advertisement depicted a wasteland where two female figures, one clad in white and one clad in black, the former having a mouthguard and the latter having eyeguards, are fighting, with the former having a Luger pistol and a combat knife, before the black one grapples the white one, and the white one takes out a grenade (implying that she was about to commit suicide to ensure her enemy goes down with her). While all of this is occurring, various IFVs are traversing through train tracks, the St. Peter's Basilica grows legs and is moving around before being destroyed by cannon fire, several MiG-3s transform into MiG-29s, and Hind As are then shown flying around in a cityscape, as well as a rock resembling a face nearby. It then shows Russian cyrilics with pieces falling off resembling aerial bombs which translate to the company slogan before revealing the logo and name for the company (depicted as an Ocelot opera mask). Unlike its fellow PMC companies Praying Mantis, Pieuvre Armement and Werewolf, its TV spot lacked a narrator, sharing this distinction with Raven Sword.

Otselotovaya Khvatka's logo featured a stylized image of an ocelot's head with the right ear having a large hole and the left ear having two notches, with the name of the organization being given at the bottom in Russian Cyrilics, with "Khvatka" being underlined.

Behind the scenes

The Otselotovaya Khvatka PMC can be seen in the TV commercials at the beginning of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, though it is not featured in the main game itself. The commercial depicts two female soldiers carrying Mk. 2 grenades, an AKS-74u, and the artillery model of the Luger P08. Several aircraft are also depicted, which resemble the MiG-3, MiG-29s, and Hind As, as well as a train car. From the map presented in the Act 1 Briefing, Otselotovaya Khvatka's headquarters appears to be located in Moscow.

Some fans had previously speculated that Otselotovaya Khvatka were the Haven Troopers, with its name suggesting that it was personally commanded by its namesake, Liquid Ocelot (similar to other Outer Heaven PMCs), and its TV commercial featuring female soldiers. However, the Haven Troopers are shown to act more as a private army for the defense of Outer Haven, and the furthering of Liquid's goals, rather than the for-hire group represented in Otselotovaya Khvatka's commercial.

Metal Gear Online's Reward Shop featured an Ushanka hat that has the Otselotovaya Khvatka symbol on the front. Whether this was implying that this hat was meant to be worn by the PMC faction, or that it is simply there as an Easter egg remains unclear.

The TV spot was personally created by one of the three people most responsible for the TV spot intros in the intro to Metal Gear Solid 4, Alexei Tylevich. He based the TV spot on his own personal experiences, having been born in Belarus, back when it was controlled by Russia, then known as the Soviet Union, and then moving with his family to the United States during the 1980s. In addition, his parents worked in the film industry, and as such he watched various Eastern Bloc actresses such as Russian film legend Andrei Tarkovsky and Ingmar Bergman. He modeled the TV spot for what he thought an aspirational commercial in Russia was like, and wanted to do something more emotional and melodramatic without it going to Michael Bay-levels. He also stated that "We really got pretty deep into analyzing what these things could be. I wanted it to be allegorical in some way, good versus evil, and then the wider idea of this war on terror." Alex also cited that there were some minor Easter eggs in what was effectively an Easter egg, an example being a brief scene of a statue of Vladimir Lenin being toppled. Alex said he added that one in as a reference to Russian history as well as some elements of Chechnya. The entire TV spot was created via motion capture techniques, requiring a combination of live-action sequences (which were filmed with a Red digital camera), as well as the Phantom engine and its 1000 frame-per-second rate. The sequence with the two women fighting in slow motion was stated to be the most difficult part to film, as they were attached to wires and had guns drawn.

Although the advertisement in Metal Gear Solid 4 implied that a significant part of Otselotovaya Khvatka's duties were air force-related, this was contradicted in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, where Raiden implied in a Codec conversation, relating to the MQ-133C, that no PMCs specializing in airborne warfare existed at the time of the war economy.

The Otselotovaya Khvatka logo appears as a custom emblem piece in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

Gallery

Still from the Otselotovaya Khvatka TV spot.

A Hind A seen in the Otselotovaya Khvatka PMC commercial, implying their use in the PMC.