Patient Gamers

Subnautica!

You just described Shadow of the Colossis.

Real life

Perhaps Outer Wilds? You zoom around in a small space ship in a solar system and when you approach different phenomenas and see how big they get it gets pretty amazing.

Kingdom Come: Deliverence. Heard so much good about this game. Open world, you need to train to actually become decent or good at anything at all. Might be a perfect fit.

Sounds like you'd enjoy a good play through of Outer Wilds.

Outer Wilds

Rain World. You are a little slugcat in a hostile ecosystem. You can fight but the predators will brutally kill you most of the time so evading combat is often better. The locations you visit are beautiful and it's easy to get lost, and the other creatures keep interacting even if you aren't there

Another different: NaissanceE. You explore incredible vast locations in a lonely monochromatic world. It's a mix of puzzle with platformer that will make you feel really small with structures that appear to repeat to the infinity. It's free on Steam.

Well I feel like have to kick this off with

Rain World

How has Kenshi not been mentioned

No Man’s Sky does this for me, especially the older versions.

I think you'd like the Souls series by FromSoft. I only have played Elden Ring, but I think it fits your description really well. And from what I've heard, the rest of the Souls games would fit

Try Outer Wilds for a healthy dose of existential crisis.

Kenshi pretty much fits that request a 100%

Have you tried "Life"?

This War of Mine. You're a survivor that needs to make tough decisions

Disco Elysium (currently on HB Choice), you're a drunk cop trying to solve a case while trying to keep yourself together

Any chance you haven't played Dark Souls? It checks all your boxes

• The Longing: a really subversive experience
• Kingdom Come Deliverance: open world medieval game with a moderate emphasis on realism. You start out as a peasant who knows how to use a sword and finish the game being not much more than that.
• Dark Souls 1, 2, 3: these games make you feel pretty unimportant, unlike other FromSoft games like Bloodborne or Elden Ring. The bosses and environments will certainly make you feel challenged and powerless all the time.

No Man’s Sky. The main story will make you feel insignificant in the universe.

I would say anything multiplayer that dumps you into a cruel world of 10-year veterans of incomparable skill and/or wealth. Persistent survival especially for avoiding matchmaking in favor of unfair encounters.

Eve - huge space game has a reputation. Something something nullsec, space pirates. Foxhole - you're a grunt in a huge war machine. Good luck surviving the grenade spam, artillery, tanks, machine guns, and that bayonet guy who can dodge bullets. Rust (also Tarkov, DayZ, etc) - you're too poor to afford decent guns and armor, but you have to risk it anyway to stand a chance in the PvP hellhole of players who shoot on sight. They're better shots than you. They see you first. And they brought more friends. Ark: Survival Evolved - try the persistent official servers, face Kaiju ultra-dinosaurs that have been bred to perfection since launch. Try PvP clusters, and clans speed run to the cheesiest endgame content then wipe your base on day 2. I'm a gaming masochist and this game was too much for me.

The weird thing is that there are hero players. The ones who win 1v3s without a sweat. They're just not you. You're fighting them. You won't be them until you've dedicated 2000 hours to git gud.

Katamari Damacy. You play as a puny prince, constantly mocked by your disapproving father.

Hear me out on this one, but Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order created that feeling for me.

You might think, "jballs, you're crazy! You play as a Jedi who hacks through hundreds of bad guys with a lightsaber, all while growing your power to incredible levels where you become nearly unstoppable. How is that a game where you're insignificant?"

And I would respond, "I don't know how to use Lemmy spoiler tags. So you're just gonna have to trust me on this one."

Arguably, Spec Ops: The Line.

It’s a game where you’re a protagonist, but whether you’re a hero or not is a different story - and I can’t say any more without major, major spoilers.

Any S.T.A.L.K.E.R game

Daggerfall. Once you've played that everything else has the volume turned down.

And on gog there's a version for free that comes with a highly modded daggerfall unity that looks and plays much more like a modern game.

Dark Souls?

Pretty much, I'm looking for a game where I'm not the hero, I'm not the protagonist, I'm just a pawn in the big picture.

You're just one of the many undead who try but eventually fail. One of the first characters you meet makes sure you know this. :)

Preferably a game with a big open world too, one that feels real and isn't just a predetermined path for my player.

DS1 isn't very large, but there's no predetermined path at all, especially if you get the master key. DS2 isn't as open, but you still have multiple choice of routes. DS3 is limited in this regard, though.

I also like games where you aren't clearly stronger than all your opponents like you're some sort of God so they actually feel intimidating and there is a fear of dying

That's the hallmark of the Soulsbourne series as a whole.

Maybe No Man's Sky? It has been updated a lot since it was released and fixed most of the issues.

probably rain world you are the protag in that game, but you're also just one part in this huge procedurally simulated ecosystem not to mention, the game is really hard

Outward is really good for this. You aren't the chosen one, you aren't special, you're just a person trying to get by and the game really makes sure you know it haha

World of Warcraft Classic. You start as a no one. Everybody around you seems to know what to do. Your items are shit. You look like a peasant. The silliest enemies force you to rest and are able to kill you.

It‘s challenging but so rewarding. It makes you feel grateful for every single lvlup, item and skill you can get.

Even after spending literal days of your life, there always will be people who are better than you. Everything is said and done. Still this game manages to pull me back in from time to time. It’s so much fun.

EVE Online makes you feel very small, literally and figuratively. You can do whatever you want but it usually doesn't really matter because you're just one ship in a vast galaxy of unknown danger and player-led mega corps.

I feel like Valheim fits this to a certain degree

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Elite:Dangerous star map size is staggering, it is roughly the size of our galaxy, after you make acquaintance with such scale if it happens that you look out of the night sky IRL and see some nice stars think again, for some of the celestial bodies you see and think they are stars might be instead, for many are indeed, other galaxies entirely, as big as our or even larger, but so far out in the universe that we can perceive their light from here just as a pin of light.

Also read here: https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex

Everything by David OReilly