All Points Bulletin developer have played down suggestions that the developer recently bought-back the license from Webzen as they are hoping to pitch the project to as Online.

The Scottish developer, fronted by GTA creator David Jones, recently received an influx of venture capital which was used to acquire APB in its entirety. The game will be a city-based crime MMO.

Realtime Worlds, however, are distancing themselves from this chit-chat, stating they only acquired the rights to give them "some options".

"One of which is to launch it and support it themselves, and the other one is to look for another partner; someone else who may well be interested and have the infrastructure [to support it]," a representative told site Eurogamer.net.

The firm previously created the popular Crackdown, another game which has drawn comparisons with GTA.

Rockstar have previously mooted the idea of a GTA MMO, but have never crafted such a game in the past.

By Luke Guttridge