We keep running into this rumor about the next Grand Theft Auto 4 taking place in New York City, so I thought I'd pass it on here through the rumormill and put more brains on the task. Please take this as completely unconfirmed news until we can dig up more information.  Here's what we think we know:

• The new GTA would play in New York City, in the early 90's
• The story is based on the Russian Mafia vs. the Italian Mafia
• Protagonist is an American-Italian working his way up the family
  

Conflicting rumors place the game back in California, primarily due to this fake mockup that was circulating earlier this year. The Big Apple as a grand next-gen  debut does have allure, but I'm mostly skeptical because they covered so much of NYC & New Jersey with Grand Theft Auto 3 ... but it wasn't necessarily Manhattan per se. Think this holds weight? Check out the rumor spreading references below and draw your own conclusions. PS: Only one of them is in English with typos a blazing :)

References: PS3 Netherlands, Ruliweb Korea, News4gamers