"Mystery screenshot purportedly of next Grand Theft Auto hits the web A screenshot supposedly revealing the first glimpse of Rockstar's next-gen version of the biggest gaming franchise in the world, Grand Theft Auto, has been exposed.

The shot, pictured right, depicts a typical GTA-esque landscape featuring a large apartment building in the background, pedestrians to shoot at and, of course, cars to steal.

Scant details accompanied the picture when it was first posted on French website Jeux-France late yesterday, but they did reveal some interesting and unusual suggestions.

As well as predicting a first showing on PlayStation 3, the website suggested that the game would soon come to other next-gen consoles due to "online possibilities".

What this actually means is anyone's guess, but we like to think that the next GTA will have some kind of MMORPG-type element to it.

Jeux-France also claimed that the game will be six times larger than San Andreas, with 350 different cars, and would see players having to administrate fuel levels in the cars they drive.

Most odd though was a suggestion that, when literally translated, said the game would introduce a "system of creation of animals". No, we don't have any idea either... perhaps you breed dogs?

Naturally, when asked, Rockstar declined to confirm or deny the image's authenticity, unsurprisingly choosing to play the 'no comment' card.

UPDATE

Following yesterday's swift 'no comment' response from Rockstar regarding the supposedly leaked next-gen GTA screenshot, the company has contacted us this morning to flatly deny the picture is of any GTA game currently in development.

While Rockstar has no idea where Jeux-France, the original source of the image, got the shot from, the company has gone on record to deny that the picture came from any of its internal development studios.

So that's that then... or is it? We're still none the wiser regarding what this image is actually of and where it came from. The question is, will we ever find out? We'll keep you posted as soon as we uncover anything further on this intriguing tale... "