Fireteam

A Fireteam in Old Russia.

A Fireteam is a combat unit^[1] of up to three Guardians formed to conduct infantry operations with tactical flexibility.^[2] Fireteams act similarly to clans in terms of game mechanics.^[3] If all members of a fireteam are downed simultaniously, progress is reset.^[4]

Fireteams are optional in story missions and on patrol, but are required in strikes. Players can form their own fireteams if they wish, but if they enter a strike alone, they'll be matched with players of similar rank playing on the same strike mission. Forming a fireteam is necessary if one wants to bring other players into a darkness zone. Fireteam leaders depend on how many kills they have, how many team mate retrieves they have made, and how many Ghosts have been retrieved. Guardians can form a fireteam up to the size of six Guardians in a Raid, such as the Vault of Glass.

There are 2 chatlines that fireteam members can communicate through—Fireteam Chat, and Team Chat.

Players can form fireteams in one of two ways: send an invitation, or public meetup. If a player has their Fireteam Privacy set to "Invitation Only", then anyone wishing to have that player on their fireteam must send them an invitation in-game via the player inspection menu. But if that player's privacy is set to "Public", any nearby player can automatically join.

Trivia

David Dague replied to question on Bungie.net, The question being "what in-game devices will there be for clans?" Dague replied with "what are clans?". This joke goes further with the fireteam card file name being "ClansLol.jpg".^[3]