There is quite the crossover between professional football and gaming – but not many players are as dedicated to the latter as Reuell Walters.
Walters is on the fringes of the Arsenal first team, having been named on the substitutes’ bench for their last three Premier League matches, as well as against Sporting in the Europa League. He is a highly-rated 18-year-old defender of whom much is expected.
But, to many people online, he is not known for his football talent. Nor is he known as Reuell Walters. To people who play Fortnite, he is rjw, creator of a popular map called RJW’s BOX PVP.
Walters is not just a keen gamer, he’s also a gaming content creator, who has nearly 9,000 followers on Instagram and over 11,000 subscribers on YouTube. Although his content has understandably taken a back seat in recent years, while his football career blossomed, Walters’ work would be well known to Fortnite players.
That’s because RJW’s BOX PVP is an extremely popular creation. Back in November 2019, he received an email from Fortnite makers EpicGames, who informed Walters he had earned $20 after a certain number of people played his map.
“He said ‘I just made $20 for my map," Walters’ dad Raphael told The Athletic. “People are in my map and when they buy stuff with their V-Bucks, I get a commission, so I made $20’.”
Things soon snowballed and, after Walters’ parents initially rejected the payments, believing them to be scams, they began to see the reality. Remarkably, Walters’ map was played 250million times in a single week.
Suddenly the commission was pouring in and he made $11,000 (£8,800) following a particularly busy night for his creation.
While he is still collecting commissions, Fortnite has gradually faded from Walters’ view over the past few years. He has not posted any video content on his gaming YouTube channel in over a year, or on Instagram account in nearly two years.
That is because he is now fully focused on breaking into a team who are battling for the Premier League title. Walters first came onto the radar of Arsenal fans during the club’s pre-season tour of the US, after being selected as the only academy player to travel with Mikel Arteta’s squad.
While he is primarily a right-back, Walters – who started out in Tottenham ’s academy and came close to joining Manchester United – caught the eye playing as a left-back in a friendly against Everton, while he has also been trialled in central defence against Nuremburg.
He has played as a left-sided central defender for Jack Wilshere’s under-18 side in recent months – and that has thrust him into the first-team picture of late. The injury to William Saliba has pushed Rob Holding into the starting XI and left January signing Jakub Kiwior as the only other senior central defender in the squad.
Walters has therefore been promoted to the first team to provide cover on the bench. He is yet to make his senior debut for Arsenal, but having racked up 55 appearances in the academy since signing in November 2020, he is considered to be the next cab off the rank.
His progression through the Arsenal set-up means that Fortnite will likely have to remain on the back-burner for the time being.
