Last month Variety reported that Take Two Interactive and 2K Boston head Ken Levine were in talks to extend Levine's contract at the publisher. Now the New York Post is reporting through unnamed sources that a deal is close to being made with Levine that would keep him at Take Two Interactive with some extra incentives.

While neither the publisher nor Levine's agent would officially comment, the New York Post reports that Levine's new deal, if it is finalized, will allow him to have more creative control over his game projects as well as a way to launch new franchises for Take Two. Levine got a lot more clout after the critical and sales success of 2007's first person shooter BioShock. The article quotes an financial analyst as saying that keeping Levine is critical to Take Two if they are to extract a higher selling price from Electronic Arts which currently is engaged in a hostile takeover of Take Two.