The gameplay in the console version of Rainbow Six 3 deviates from its PC counterpart in a number of important areas, notably the exclusion of a mission planning stage and the inability to control multiple characters. Instead, players take the role of Rainbow field commander Ding Chavez and lead a single fireteam consisting of Eddie Price, Louis Loiselle, and Dieter Weber through each of the game's missions. Orders can be issued to the teammates using either an in-game menu or through voice-commands via the Xbox Live headset. This, however, suffered from slight misunderstandings between similar phrases such as "Open frag and clear" and "open flash and clear", and vice versa. To compensate for the decreased control players have over their squad, the squad AI has been improved, with squadmates being able to automatically duck behind objects or assume covering positions within an area. Each teammate has their own unique voice as opposed to generic voices in the PC version.
The action is also slightly more forgiving in the console version. Chavez and his teammates each have a life bar consisting of four units of health, which must be depleted before that Rainbow operative is incapacitated. In the console versions, it is possible for the player to sustain several bullet hits before dying.