Raids are "extremely crafted," six-player, friends-only gauntlet runs that might best be described as gut-checks. Yes, they will be difficult, and they will absolutely require communication and cooperation. That's why Bungie isn't supporting matchmaking for them; the developers don't want them to be played by disparate groups of strangers. But Smith is quick to point out that they're not like Strikes – the instanced dungeon-like runs that might take a mere 20-60 minutes – but more like MMO raids in that you're going to want to buckle up and get comfortable for a couple hours.
This brings with it a number of unique challenges, chief among them being, How do you do this in a shooter and make it fun? Smith has been pondering the same question.
That's not to say raids will be impossible, but this is Bungie, after all – a studio famous for challenging fans with the Legendary difficulty setting in its Halo games: "One of the things we have never talked about – we haven't really talked about raiding at all," Smith starts. "One of the things we certainly haven't talked about is that [raids aren't] an activity that we expect you to get through the first time through.