'Fortnite' creator Epic Games is making space for 2,000 more employees at its North Carolina headquarters

Epic Games, the company behind "Fortnite," is quietly expanding its headquarters and overall business.

Epic recently announced plans to expand its Cary, North Carolina headquarters from 450,000 to 500,000 square feet, creating space for as many as 2,000 new employees.

Epic has also used the massive amounts of revenue from "Fortnite" to recruit top industry talent and launch its own PC video game store.

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The company behind the world's biggest video game is about to get even bigger, literally.

"Fortnite" creator Epic Games will expand its Cary, North Carolina headquarters from 450,000 to 500,000 square feet, and the company says the new space may accommodate up-to 2,000 employees.

Epic has been located in Cary since 1999 and moved to its current 8.2-acre site in 2015. The expansion will begin in 2020 and is expected to take three or four years. The company announced the expansion in an October 3 press release, which included encouraging statements from Cary's mayor and the local chamber of commerce.

"We are elated that Epic Games is expanding their Cary headquarters! They are doing amazing things, and we are so proud of all they're accomplishing," Cary Mayor Harold Weinbrecht said in the announcement. "We know that Epic could locate anywhere in the world, and we're grateful that they've chosen to continue to call Cary home."

"Fortnite" is the most popular game in the world with more than 250 million players, and the game reportedly generated $2.4 billion in revenue for Epic during 2018. In March, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said the company had achieved "economies of scale" thanks to "Fortnite," and the company has wasted no time expanding its business.

Read more: The CEO behind 'Fortnite' says it's 'evolving beyond being a game' and explains the company's ambitious vision

In December 2018, Epic launched the Epic Games Store, a new digital storefront for PC games that gives developers a larger cut of sales revenue than Steam, the current juggernaut of the PC market. Sweeney said the store could remain profitable while taking a 12% fee from game sales, whereas Steam, Apple's App Store, and Google Play normally charge take 30% from developers.

In addition to "Fortnite," Epic is responsible for Unreal Engine, a game development suite that's popular with major video game companies and indie developers alike. Epic earns a percentage of revenue from games that license "Unreal," including hit titles like "Mortal Kombat" and "Gears of War." Epic rewards developers who use both Unreal and the Epic Games Store by taking a reduced 7% revenue fee from sales in the store.

Epic has also been recruiting top video game industry talent in the past year, adding former Overwatch League Commissioner Nate Nanzer, fighting game expert Seth Killian, and Respawn Entertainment cofounder Jason West. 

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