‘It’s Never Too Late to Start Again’

“SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED,” says Mara Aquino as Hearty, her trusted makeup artist, works on her face while she eats puto bumbong. 

“Within five months, and the things that have happened, I felt like would have happened in a span of like a year.”

Five months. That’s how long it’s been since Mara traded the stage lights of MPL Philippines and the M-Series World Championship for a new beginning in Honor of Kings’ (HOK) Philippine Kings League or PKL. To the outside world, it looked like a strange move: leaving a world where she was already recognized, celebrated, familiar.

But to Mara, it was exactly what she needed.

“Yeah, it’s only been five months and everything has spiraled up,” she says. “I feel like I’m exactly where I should be. My life is so much happier. When you’re in the right place, everything blooms, doors start to open, and the road is smoother.”

There’s a calm certainty in the way she says this. 

“I feel like there are things that happen and they happen for a reason, and this is one of those things,” she adds. “You just need to make this decision and everything will be better after.”

When Mara joined PKL, there was no live crowd, no fanfare, no familiar rhythm. Just a studio, a handful of dreamers, and a game trying to plant its roots in a country already loyal to another.

“The first time that I started PKL, I already decided,” she recalls. “I knew that I was wanted, and I want to help it grow. We started from humble beginnings.”

And maybe that’s what drew her in, the humility of a beginning. The chance to build something again from the ground up.

“That’s what’s exciting about what’s new,” she says. “When something is new, and it’s still building, you want to be part of that growth. You want to be one of the people who helped contribute to it. And this is supposed to be my new family, my new world.”

How Honor of Kings gained the trust of Mara Aquino

Somewhere between those first few months, Mara started to see the shape of the light again.

“It was a series of events that made me feel that I was going to be all right,” she says. “First was when they gave such importance to me. It was not just a reveal video but they made me part of the game. They gave me an announcer pack in the game, and that was a big deal for me.”

Recognition, not as nostalgia, but as rebirth. After her first season with PKL, she was sent to Riyadh for the Esports World Cup, a rare honor for someone so new. There, Mara Aquino won the Global Fan Favorite Voice Award for her work in Honor of Kings at the Esports World Cup 2025.

“They put three hosts, including me. It’s not normal to have three. The fact that they made space for me and included me sent a message that we acknowledge your value, we can see what you can contribute, and it’s all up to you how you want to shine.”

When she won an award, it was proof that she hadn’t lost herself in the leap.

“That gave me that peace of mind and that answer that I am something,” she says. “It was an international recognition.”

Then came the leaders of HOK, who told her they loved and appreciated her, words that anchored her in this new place.

“That’s when I knew that I’m gonna be okay.”

Planting new seeds

Mara compares this new world to the long road of an athlete.

“You know when you’re an athlete and you get the right tools and people around you? With Honor of Kings, they’re getting the right casters, they’re investing in the community, they’re making it grow from grassroots. With consistency, it’s going to get there.”

And in her eyes, it already is.

“Like I said before, it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” she says. “Do you know when it’s dark and you are driving and you don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel? But you just know that you want to keep going forward… But when you put enough gas, when you put the proper lights, when you have the right vehicle, and you’ve prepared yourself, eventually it’s going to lead you to your destination, and it’s gonna be bright.”

She laughs when she talks about her team now—Chantelle, Manjean-Boo—names that used to share the same MPL stage.

“Our voices are heard, our opinions matter. Our thoughts become reality,” she says. “And that’s exactly where you want to be. That’s the environment where you want to be.”

‘I thought that was my prime.’

When we asked Mara what the most significant lesson she’s learned after joining PKL was, she spoke softly.

“It’s never too late to start again.”

After a little pause and reflection, she continued.

“You know when you’ve been doing something… like when I was there (in MPL), it was like being at the pinnacle. I thought that was my prime. Mayroon pa pala akong panibago.”

It’s a rare thing to leave your own peak, rarer still to discover another one waiting after it.

“Yes! I thought that was the pinnacle,” she says. “How often is it going to happen that when you do something, you are gonna be a face for local and international? In a way, it doesn’t make sense to leave something where you are already a recognized person, and if you go somewhere, you’ll start all over again?! You’re gonna build again?”

We asked if she became afraid.

“Yeah, of course!“

Her voice seemed to shake as she remembered the time she left MPL in January 2025. There were no offers for Mara Aquino from other games then, and she thought she would pursue a different path than PKL.

“Of course, I was afraid! But then you know, someone said I’m nothing without them, so that was also a push to be something without them. That was a big push. I refuse to acknowledge that I’m nothing without them,” she says, not in anger, but as someone reclaiming her sense of worth.

There’s no bitterness in her tone but only clarity.

“First, there was fear. But when things started to happen, I realized there’s nothing to worry about. I literally just have to put trust in the seeds that I’ve planted, which is the experience that I’ve put on my resume, and now, those seeds are blooming. That I have enough reputation, enough skills, enough assets, and enough of myself that I’ve built that wherever I’m gonna go, I put value in it.”

Fear, she says, was just the first part. The rest was faith—in the seeds she had already planted.

“I literally just have to put trust in the seeds that I’ve planted,” she says, “which is the experience that I’ve put on my resume, and now, those seeds are blooming.”

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